Where Have They Come From
by Most Wicked
Summary: A crossfire of Doom and HalfLife. Packed with action. Read and find out! UPDATE July 2005
1. I

**Disclaimer  
  
I don't own Doom, nor Half-Life.  
  
PS: Sierra rules!!!! (ID is nice too... ;) All who never played Half-Life - please do. Although the 1st chapter is mostly about Doom, the story will slowly turn into an almost entirely Half-Life one (I think I will move it from Doom to Half-Life or Game Crossovers when that happens). Half-Life is a GREAT game. Really. Well, it's *surely* better than Doom (by this I mean Doom II, of course). Play it whether you like my story or not.

This version of chapter one was edited for mistakes by Jetzer. Thank you Jetzer!  
  
ChapteR OnE  
  
His lungs were working overtime, trying to provide enough oxygen for the bloodstream, so it could carry it on to the muscles.  
  
His heart was beating very fast, trying to transfer enough oxygen to his muscle cells, before the toxins rendered them useless.   
  
He ran on and on.  
  
Several lead bullets passed by him, nearly nailing his left shoulder. He performed a roll on the floor, faced his enemies, raised his gun and fired!  
  
His huge gatling machine-gun was dancing wildly in his hands, delivering it's deadly payload toward his distant targets.  
  
And those targets were people.  
  
At least on the outside.  
  
Several of them took direct hits to the head and collapsed on the ground, but most of them were too far away for the bulky machine gun to be accurate.  
  
The rest continued to advance slowly, their emotionless faces staring at him with silent mocking.  
  
"Aaaarrrgghhh!!!!", he screamed at them and charged. He dropped the heavy machine-gun, and drew a pump-action shotgun instead, raining lead all over the people ahead.  
  
They seemed to hesitate for a second, then continued their approach towards him, right through the hail of high-caliber bullets he was spraying at them.  
  
A few were hit in their limbs, but they continued to walk without even wincing. Several raised their rifles, shooting randomly in hopes of bringing the charging man down.  
  
But he would not be subdued that easily.  
  
He continued to run. But he was out of ammo.  
  
His hands moved with a blinding speed, and in a second he was shooting at the zombie-like soldiers ahead with two Colt handguns.  
  
He was now close enough to aim carefully, and he was no rookie in the marksmanship department.  
  
The bullets connected with the zombie's skulls, spilling out their brains, causing them to drop on the ground immediately.  
  
He gunned them all down without being tagged even once by the return fire.  
  
Good, since his combat armor was in a bad condition as it is.  
  
Suddenly, he heard a sound of bare feet running behind him, and spun around, to see a vile pink creature charging at him from a few dozen meters away.  
  
He raised his guns and unleashed hell upon the vile demon.  
  
The magazines of both guns were completely emptied before the demon went down, spraying red, almost human-looking blood all over the place.  
  
In the meanwhile two more appeared, charging at him from the same direction as the first one.  
  
The empty magazines of both guns dropped to the ground, and he started to search the pockets of his battle suit for new ones.  
  
But he was out of ammo.  
  
Realization downed upon his face, obscured by his combat helmet, as both demons leapt toward him.  
  
He jumped to the right and landed on his shoulder, performing a very commendable roll.  
  
The demons landed on the place he was occupying a moment ago, claws unsheathed, eyes burning red.  
  
But the human would NEVER surrender.  
  
He drawn his last weapon from his backpack. His last line of defense before he'd have to resort to knife-fighting.  
  
His trusty chainsaw.  
  
The demons gazed evilly upon him, and in a split-second were already thundering towards him, vicious, drooling, ready to drink his blood.  
  
"Not today, suckers!!!", growled the man, and raised his chainsaw exactly at the moment that the demon leaped at him. The chainsaw, buzzing wildly, cut through the demon's thick skull bone, turning his brain into a milkshake.  
  
He wasn't known by the name 'Doom' for nothing...  
  
The man retrieved his chainsaw from the fallen demon's head just in time so he could face his malevolent companion.  
  
This one, seeing the death of his friend, was more careful.  
  
He was circling his mortal prey slowly, trying to lull the man into a false sense of security for a time. And then, the demon would strike, when he already thought he won.  
  
He knew their tactics all too well.  
  
From personal experience.  
  
One moment the demon was gazing onto the man's face with it's red, frenzied eyes, and in the next it was already leaping, screaming supernaturally as it did.  
  
The demon met the same fate as the other one.  
  
Doom, an old veteran of the war with these creatures and others like it, had learned well that while they had tough bones, sharp teeth and awful temper, what they lacked was patience.  
  
Doom walked over to one of the zombie soldiers he killed earlier and cleaned the blood of the now turned-off chainsaw using the man's khaki uniform.  
  
He never knew this particular man personally, but he knew others like him who turned into mindless minions of the invading forces of hell.  
  
Some were once his best friends, some were his family.  
  
But now they were long dead, by his own hands.  
  
Though he knew they had already died the moment their soul was taken by Satan, he could never shrug-off the feeling of guilt over their deaths.  
  
He saw their empty mindless eyes, staring at empty air, right before he drove a bullet through the head of each and every one of them.  
  
That was YEARS ago.  
  
It was a miracle how he has managed to survive all this time while Earth was long since occupied by the unholy spirits.  
  
He then went on and picked back up every weapon he dropped during the tense fight.  
  
He didn't bother with the cheap rifles of the zombies, as usual.  
  
'Never count on anything that a non-human hand held', was Doom's number one rule.  
  
Now, his next worry would be to seek out a safe place to crash.  
  
---  
  
He was sleeping in some dark alley of the former city of Los-Angeles.  
  
Sleep... a luxury indeed.  
  
He never slept more than an hour at a time, and over the years he has become very sensitive to all kinds of noises, often waking up from a slight rustling of a leaf at autumn.  
  
And sure enough, his eyes were suddenly opened wide as he heard something coming.  
  
_Footsteps. Definitely footsteps. Doesn't sound human, too.  
_  
This day was beginning like so many other days before it.  
  
He stood up from the rough ground, and picked up his good ole' weapons. They were full of ammo now - he had found a weapons factory (well... a FORMER factory) that still had plentiful supplies of ammo stored.  
  
The demons never bothered to raid former human buildings, and there were no other people around besides Doom to steal this stuff...  
  
He was standing slightly crouched near the exit out of the alley, with the shotgun ready to do short work of any foe that could appear from the street.  
  
He tried to listen, to determine what kind of creature was he dealing here with.  
  
He hoped it wasn't anything serious - if it was a hell Knight, a Reviver or (shudder...) a Cyberdemon, he was in deep shit.  
  
But what he actually heard... it was some kind of.... language?  
  
The demons NEVER spoke or said anything. They were only capably of growling. Or were they?  
  
Anyway, Doom knew that whatever it was, it couldn't possibly be human, not even a zombie.  
  
He braced himself - and went into action!  
  
Doom jumped out of the alley, shotgun pointing in the direction of the weird alien sounds. The moment he saw something brown, he pulled the trigger, releasing half a dozen shells at his target.  
  
The creature didn't even have any time to respond.  
  
The bullets torn it apart, spraying green blood over the old cracked sidewalk.  
  
Wait a minute... green?  
  
Doom NEVER saw any monster that ever had green blood. Red - of course. Black - all true spawns of hell had black blood. He even seen blue blood - or cooling liquid - in the bodies of hellish mechanical spiders. But green blood?  
  
In fact, he had never seen before this kind of creature, with brown fur and big, insect-like eyes, coloured bright red. It looked almost... cute, if not for it's sharp claws and ugly, insect-like mouth.  
  
But overall, it hardly looked like a demon...  
  
Suddenly, he heard a familiar sound behind him - someone, or better say someTHING, just teleported into the street. Probably right from hell, as usual.  
  
He spun around, just in time to see another creature similar to the one Doom just fragged raising his hands, shouting something that was suspiciously similar to the word "DIE!" in English...  
  
Green lightning started to form in his clawed hands, and Doom fired.  
  
Unfortunately, the creature wasn't very close to him, and only a couple of bullets from the spread have tagged it. And although this thing wasn't as tough as some of the other monsters Doom encountered in the past, it wasn't as fragile as Doom hoped it'll be.  
  
In the next moment the creature lowered its hands down and pointed them at Doom.  
  
Only his sharp reflexes saved him, as a powerful green lightning shot out of the creature's hands, missing Doom by inches as he dodged the discharge.  
  
Then Doom fired again, and a second time, and finally the creature collapsed to the ground, spilling that same intriguing green blood.  
  
Doom breathed with relief. It wasn't too tough.  
  
But what the heck are these things? He had a gut feeling that they had nothing to do with hell...  
  
TO BE CONTINUED


	2. II

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks _Janus Kamaren _and _Masto Staly _for reviewing my story. It inspired me quite a lot. I _will_ continue to update WHTCF, don't worry.

REVISED DISCLAIMER: Half-Life is property of _Valve_, not Sierra. Anyway, no matter who's Half-Life is, it's definitely not mine, and I am not intending to abuse Valve's (or Sierra's or whatever) copy rights in any way.

***********

CHAPTER 2

***********

Doom looked left, then right.

The street looked deserted, the wind blowing a lot of dust that was gathered here after years of abandonment.

He exited the alley, pointing his pistol ahead of him. If something will jump out on him, he would have the time to shoot it, then take out a heavier weapon from his multi-purpose combat suit.

And soon, he had the opportunity to do so.

As he walked carefully down the street, he heard a teleportation sound from behind him. Doom was very tired of it by now - he had heard this sound quite a lot during the past few hours. He did not care whether it be a Demon or the new 'greenblood' types (that's how he called all the resent monsters that had green blood, and that were appearing around the city) - he would waste them on the spot in both cases. He spun around immediately, while half-falling to the ground. It was wise for him to do so - for a green globe of bubbling acid passed inches above his helmet visor.

The acid hit the middle of a lamppost that was barely standing by now, though it was in better condition than some of the other objects on this street. The section of the post that was hit melted very quickly, and the top part of the post fell to the concrete road with a thud, shattering the already crumbling light bulb at its end.

The old but reliable Colt M1911A1 spoken in Doom's right hand, spitting gouts of flames from its barrel. Green flesh exploded, and the being in front of him - a new type of greenblood - moaned and ran away, taking cover behind the twisted frame of what used to be a BMW.

"Shit..." muttered Doom under his breath. If only he had more grenades, he would make short work of this bugger. But he used them all up a long time ago, and as of yet hadn't had an opportunity to replenish his grenade inventory.

Yes, grenades were definitely his worst desire right now. So were bazookas, tanks and choppers. But those were merely desires, not reality. He will have to get along with what he already got.

His hands moved very quickly, and in a second he was holding his number one best friend. His name was Remington.

He moved very slowly around the burned car, keeping a healthy distance away. The sawed-off barrel of his weapon was pointing towards the speculated location of the tentacle-bearing monster, steady, unwavering.

Around the car he went, until....

TSSSSST!

Another globe of acid was hurled toward his feet from the direction of the car he watched so carefully. Doom leaped high into the air above the acid, just barely avoiding the thing, and it hit the sidewalk, splashing angry drops of the hazardous liquid.

'Damn it, another close call...' he thought, as the creature took cover again. He kept these thoughts private though, letting his shotgun speak for him instead...

Additional damage, this time in the form of big round holes, was added to the battered vehicle as Doom tried to bring the monster out of its cover.

And surely enough, the dim-witted thing caught the bait, running out of its cover and went straight to the direction of the alley from which Doom originally came onto this street. The creature, with its wobbling thick tail, was clear in Doom's sights. He was sure that he would not miss this thing, no matter the distance, when something unexpected happened.

Before Doom had the opportunity to pull the trigger, a flaming ball of fire came from a nearby roof of a four-story high building, hitting the monster dead in the head. The head was blown to pieces and the body collapsed on the road with a nearly inaudible thud.

Doom was all too familiar with this fireball and with the creature that produced it.

An Imp.

Doom could see its form clearly, standing threateningly on the roof, superimposed on the blood-red skies.

The Imp growled fiercely, and released another glowing ball of flames, this time at Doom. The fireball, forming around the Imps clawed hand, flew at Doom, who jumped to the side, dodging the burning inferno.

In a moment Dooms chaingun was unstrapped from his back and resting comfortably in his hands. He aimed it at the Imp.

Suddenly, the Imp was surrounded by green flashes of light, which illuminated its brown dirty fur. More of his kind appeared on the roof, ready to assist their monstrous friend.

"Not today, brownies!" Doom shouted and pulled the trigger of the heavy weapon waiting in his hands. Like an angry dragon the chaingun roared, quickly sending two Imps plunging downward to their deaths. The rest kept throwing fireballs at Doom, but their slow traveling speed was no match for Dooms natural cunning, as he dodged every single fireball thrown at him.

The roof was clean in no time.

Doom reloaded the now smoking chaingun and replaced it on his back. Then he pulled back out his shotgun, and continued walking in a random direction, seeking out anything that might be useful despite the toll of years.

Doom's life was hardly full of diversity - his only worry was how to survive. Entertainment had no place in his dangerous life.

He kept walking until....

BZZZZZWHIIIIIIIIIIZ

The sound of teleportation.

"This starts to be annoying!" Doom shouted into the empty air in frustration, as he pointed his shotgun in the direction of the sound, to his left.

His eyes looked around the area, seeing only the cracked gray wall of what used to be a large bank. It was probably full of money even now. But what use would it be in this dying world? Doom was fighting for YEARS now, and he never met a single truly human creature all this time, although he has seen numerous indications that he's not the only one left, over the years.

But he shouldn't worry about the bank. First things first.

Doom eyed the place carefully, when suddenly he heard an unfamiliar freakish screech, and felt something clamp to the top of his helmet, making deep scratches in the hard plastic.

"Ahhh shit! Get lost stupid freak!" he shouted angrily, grabbing the tiny pest with his gloved hands and throwing it at the concrete wall of the building.

The thing - a small pale creature with a blobbish body - didn't look like a demon, so Doom concluded it was one of the new types. It impacted the wall and fell to the uneven dirty sidewalk, but immediately jumped on his tiny hook-shaped feet again.

'This thing is pretty tough for its size' Doom thought.

With a single big ***BANG*** from his shotgun, the pest was dead. A green, wet spot marked the place where it once stood.

'Green blood. DEFINITELY one of the new types' thought Doom.

He reloaded his shotgun and prepared to resume his walk, when all hell broke loose, and quite literally.

From behind the corner of the street ahead, at least a dozen of the brown red-eyed electricity-shooting loafs he dealt with earlier came running, with a hail of fireballs hot on their tails. Most of the fireballs missed their marks, hitting walls and rubble, but one of them hit a fleeing brown creature straight in the back, causing it to drop like a roach, making a gurgling sound on its fall. It never got back up. Some of the 'Buggies' (Doom mentally labeled them that way, for their insect-like, un-demonically cute appearance) turned around and sent a hell of lightning charges back down the street at their unseen pursuers, who were undoubtedly Imps. The electricity was so blindingly bright that Doom could still see green stripes on his retina many seconds after the attack has stopped. The other Buggies used their comrades' bravery to retreat further up the street.

Although Doom couldn't see from his poor angle whether the Buggies hit the Imps or not, he was sure that nothing could survive that horrible lightning storm the Buggies unleashed at them.

Again, the demons surprised Doom, as he suddenly saw a new volley of fireballs speeding towards the straggler Buggies, dropping two of them and forcing the others to dive for some cover.

Speaking of cover, Doom was long since hiding inside a buildings entrance, peeking only far enough to observe the events without being detected. That was not display of cowardice, as the demons would surely think if they see Doom. Doom knew when to hold back and conceive ammo – this battle was between the Buggies and the Imps, and he wanted no part in it.

Suddenly, something hit him. Fortunately for Doom, it was only a thought.

Why the hell are the Imps, the most common good ole demon types, are fighting with the new green-blooded monsters?

Doom had often seen fights between various demons, usually when several of them wanted to eat the same prey. But full-scale civil war? Impossible!

Now he had _hard proof_ that these things weren't from hell! Well, it wasn't _HARD_ proof, but it was surely enough for Doom.

A flash of green light and the oh, so hated sound, pulled Doom out of his thoughts.

The street filled with Imps and pink Demons, who started to shoot and run at the hiding Buggies, respectively.

Demons (overall, not only the pink ones) were hardly tactical experts...

The Buggies, at least, appeared to have more intelligence than their rivals, for all of a sudden a green lightning bolt, unique to the Buggies, shot out of the window of a nearby building, followed by many others that came from multiple directions, hitting the newly arrived demons with pinpoint precision that impressed even the veteran of war Doom was.

As the surprised and overrun demons tried to defend themselves from the crossfire, Doom could see a swarm of orange dots of light rising from behind a far away building.

'Oh damn, not the flaming skulls!' thought Doom, as he watched the orange dots grow larger and larger, hurrying to the Imp and Demon's help.

The Lost Souls, that were accompanied, as Doom could now see, by a lot bigger Pain Elemental, screamed into the street, aiming for the windows behind which the Buggies that were butchering the Imps and Demons were hidden.

More green teleportation flashes followed, and this time more Buggies appeared, accompanied by the tentacled acid-spitting monsters he seen earlier, and by tons of the screeching blob-creatures like the one that attacked him just a few minutes ago. There were also quite a lot of a new kind of creature with them - small, yellow with darker stripes, running on three legs. Countless eyes covered its forward body section, with no visible head. They looked quite cute, at least from this distance, and Doom could see them jumping around pointlessly, skipping and chirping like some fluffy poodles. What the hell are they here for? To be decoys for the Imp attacks?

But he could not ponder this point further, as one of the vicious Lost Souls unfortunately spotted him.

With a horrible shriek it charged down toward him at horrible speed.

Doom could still remember how mesmerized he was when he first stared into the eye sockets of one of these flying horrors, while it was flying toward him at full speed, just like now. Well, the thing has scared the shit out of him then, but not anymore. He aimed and waited until the creature was close enough, then fired the shotgun, not before adjusting it to single-shell fire first.

The heavy shell smacked into the vile soul's flaming bone forehead, destroying the skull in a tiny harmless explosion.

Doom decided he had enough of this - the fighting looked like it was merely intensifying instead of subsiding, and he would not like to be spotted by more dangerous types than a single flaming skull.

He made sure that the monsters on the street were too busy fighting each other and not looking in his direction, and then made a dash for the street corner.

He made it without being spotted, and he was very thankful for that, but unfortunately, he forgot that this was the same corner from which the Buggies he first saw got attacked in the first place...

As he raised his gaze from the ground, breathing heavily, he saw the thing he least wanted to see.

Swarms of Imps, Demons and whatnots were frying, clawing and biting swarms of Buggies and other whatnots, who were zapping, clawing and biting them in return.

The fighting at the street he just left looked like a minor skirmish comparing to this mess.

The air was thick with flaming skulls, and the ground was crawling with screeching blobs, which tried to jump at the skulls overhead every time one passed lower than three meters (that's about 10 feet for you US folks) above the ground.

Doom took cover behind the remains of an old school bus, its yellow painting still barely visible beyond the layer of dust and dirt. Fortunately the occupied fiends haven't noticed little ole Doom, and he, understandably, did not regret it at all.

As Doom watched the battle unfold, he could see the pattern of it.

The new monsters were teleporting in big numbers and attacking the demons, who ferociously defended against their attacks, and counter-attacked the monsters. It seemed like the demons were winning, but just barely.

Doom could see what the demons so desperately defended - a big building that probably used to be a warehouse of some kind, perhaps for building materials. Doom knew that there was something valuable inside that building, which could not be found elsewhere. Gold or weapons, for instance, were out of the question. The demons were completely uninterested in such things. If they were, they would've emptied out the weapons factories and stores, and if that happened, Doom would've probably run out of ammo for his firearms and fuel for his chainsaw years ago, and wouldn't be here to watch all this. No, it has to be something the monsters wanted very badly to get, and what the demons already had.

Doom immediately wanted to take a look at this something, but realized it was impossible at the moment, with not one, but two inhuman armies separating him and the door. He couldn't hope to make it alive.

Doom backed out of the street, and into a cramped alley that led into a street paralleling the first one. This street was a hot zone too, so Doom, still unnoticed as before, continued to move away as fast as he could from the warehouse's location. Finally, he was far enough, so the battle couldn't reach here and the street was deserted.

With all that action going on in the city, Doom doubted that the demons had patrols over this area, so he considered himself safe for now being.

But one could never be safe enough when dealing with demons, so Doom went several blocks further from the fighting zone, just as a precaution.

Just as he suspected, all local forces of the demons were at the battle, so nobody was anywhere near enough to greet him.

He would return to that warehouse tomorrow, when he hoped both sides would be exhausted from fighting and take a break from the battle.

Then, he will take a peek at the thing the demons were so thrilled about. It must be something good, and if this thing could be used somehow against the demons, then he would finally have at least some hope of defeating the demons and liberating Earth and the surviving people!

The discovery of another race or faction aside from the demons was a little chilling though. But hey! Perhaps the human race could negotiate somehow with these newcomers! If it didn't work with the demons, that did not mean that it would not work on another race of nightmarish, clawed creatures, with the ability to teleport and…

Doom sighed deeply.

All these thoughts were rubbish.

He should rest and gather forces for his ride on the warehouse first thing tomorrow. THEN he would think about impossible things such as "liberation of Earth" and "treaty with monsters".

Doom went to the closest weapons store he knew, and loaded himself up with ammo. He would have to thoroughly prepare for the ride, or he wouldn't stand a chance...

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, did you like it? Interested in the story behind this peculiar war? Want to know what could be this mysterious yet important thing hidden in the warehouse? Then join me in my next chapter, pretty soon to come I guess.

PS: If you think the story by now is too much about Half-Life and too little about Doom, you would only get disappointed, because the story is only going to keep getting more HalfLifish. After all, Doom is an old ugly game nobody plays anymore, and HL is a hell of a 3D Shooter game, that is a hit even now, 4 or 5 years after its release. Don't worry, I'm never intending on abandoning the Doom concept completely though – if you'll get the feeling that the story lost connection with Doom at some point later on (MUCH later), be sure that its Doom side will resurface soon enough after that.


	3. III

Author's Notes: Tada! Another chapter is ready! (Damn, sounds very weird to me, since I'm writing this _before_ the actual chapter… sigh… the work ahead of me /_\) Regarding your questions – OF COURSE Gordon is going to show up! What kind of Half-Life crossover is this without our all-time favorite orange-suited anomalous-materials jockey and Savior of Black Mesa!?! But regarding to WHEN? Stick with me and find out (and NO, that doesn't mean he'll be in this particular chapter. Or perhaps he will. Or perhaps he won't. Or perhaps he will. Argh just read on)…

Again, I thank everyone for their generous reviews.

And Blizrun, you're the guy who written the Half-Life Novelization fanfic up to chapter 7 aren't you? Why aren't you using a signed review? And why won't you FINISH THAT STORY? You left me and countless other readers _hanging_ just before the "Blast Pit" level and the oh, SO cool rocket room with the three tentacles (where most beginners get stuck all the time)!!! I see that your last update was 7 f***in' months ago… So why won't you return to fic-writing, just to finish this one, eh?

And as you peeps read the chapter, don't be confused by the disorienting beginning. It's still the same story, I haven't confused anything J.

Well, enough screwing around. You're probably bored to exhaustion by now. So why won't we go on straight to…

***********

CHAPTER 3

***********

"Mom! Dad! I'm back!" he shouted.

His voice echoed through the living room.

No response.

"Mom? Dad? It's me, Flynn! I'm back from Phobos!"

'Splash!' 

Flynn turned around, but it was only the big fish swimming in the aquarium near the stairway. It swung its tail again, making another small sound, which sounded very loud in the surrealistically quiet house.

He made his way to the stairs leading to the bedrooms.

"Jimmy? You're home?" he shouted again, hoping against hope that at least his little brother was home.

Only a small creak, coming from somewhere upstairs, answered his call.

"Jimmy? Is that you?"

Again, only a creak.

Flynn suddenly had a bad feeling.

Slowly rising up the stairs, he has drawn his handgun, aiming it upstairs.

Step after step, he rose slowly, both his eyes focused tightly on the wall corner, beyond the gun sights. Finally, he reached the last step.

'Creak'

He froze, aiming his handgun to the left.

Everything's quiet.

Slowly moving down the corridor, he started to approach the farthest door, at its very end.

Jimmie's bedroom.

Step, pause. Step, pause.

At this cautious pace, nothing could, or should, surprise him. His hands, though sweating, retained their tight grip on the small weapon. His military training and the experience he gained at the battles of Phobos were paying off.

'Creak!'

A bit louder this time.

Definitely coming from Jimmie's room.

He subdued his impulse to rush over to the door. Just in case there was something dangerous in there, he should do things by the book.

At last, after what seemed like a lifetime of pacing, he was near the door. Nothing jumped out on him from the other doors at the sides of the passageway, and he was thankful for that at least.

CREAK!

He nearly jumped at the sound, but the coolness and self control he learned the hard way at Phobos kicked in, preventing him from moving his gun even an inch to either side.

Time froze as his free left hand _cruised _toward the doorknob.

Grip. Turn. CLICK. Damn, it's locked.

SLAM!

With a kick that nearly broke the thin wooden door in half, Flynn broke into the room of his 18 year old brother and friend.

The window was open wide, casting orange light from the setting sun. The window shutter was smashed, loose on a single intact hinge. CREAK! The hinge squealed as it attempted to hold the hanging shutter despite the pretty strong wind coming from the outside.

But that wasn't the thing Flynn noticed the most. The entire room was a mess – furniture lying on the floor. Posters depicting popular rock bands ripped apart, their pieces scattered all over the room. Only the bed was mostly intact, though the pillow was nowhere to be seen.

And on it, a slim figure – Jimmy – was lying, face down.

"Jimmy!" Flynn called, lowering his gun and rushing to the side of the bed. "JIM!!!"

He did not respond.

Flynn grabbed a piece of a Foo Fighters poster from the bed, thowing it away. He then turned Jimmy around on his back, holding him tightly in his arms.

He could not feel him breathing.

When Jimmy was lying on his back, Flynn was slightly startled by his open eyes.

"What happened bro…" Flynn whispered, feeling his eyes get wetter by the moment. "Where's mom? And dad?"

And then, it happened.

Jimmy's hand moved slightly, causing Flynn to jump to his feet. This motion was shortly followed by twitches all over the body. Also, a greenish drool started dripping onto his chin.

Flynn watched in horror. At Phobos, he was warned about signs of green drool.

His brother was infected.

Possessed.

Drawing his gun from the holster (he couldn't remember when and how he re-holstered it), he aimed it at the human, a flesh of his flesh, starting to rise slowly from the bed.

Flynn could not hold back the tears anymore.

His hand was shaking visibly as he forced it to aim the weapon at Jimmie's head.

Can he do it? WOULD he do it? His brother might be not lost…. Perhaps there was hope…

But he knew there was none. If possessing spirits started to appear on Earth, that could only mean an invasion onto the birthplace of the Human race was inbound. Perhaps it has already begun…

'Push the trigger' he thought, as his formerly human brother turned around and spotted him. 'NOW!'

But his finger was frozen like a cube of ice, or glass. He couldn't move it, despite his training, his experience, his EVERYTHING.

One moment Jimmie was standing there, eyes blank, staring at thin air. In the next one, he lunged towards Flynn!

***BANG!***

A large portion of Jimmie's head disconnected from the rest of the mass, parts of his brain, now nearly bloodless, were flying around the room.

That didn't stop him.

*BANG!* *BANG!*

More holes appeared, this time slightly lower, right in his eye and mouth.

That didn't stop him, _it_, either.

Cold hands were clutching Flynn's throat, as he watched his zombie brother squeezing the breath out of him.

Suddenly, he felt something was not right. Besides the intact appearance of his head, his brother was looking down straight onto him, eyes no longer blank.

Instead, they were glowing red, and full of hatred.

"You killed me…" his brother whispered.

Flynn tried to breath, but his attempts were futile against Jimmie's death grip.

"Murderer, you killed me!" Jimmie said, louder. His eyes flamed, and he started to shake Flynn.

"You killed me!!!" the shaking increased. Flynn felt like his neck could not take the stress much longer.

"YOU KILLED ME!!!" the shout echoed through Flynn's mind, erasing everything within him, leaving only ice and torture.

"YOUUUUU KIIIIIILED MEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You failed me, Flynn…"

*WHAM!*

---

It was like surfacing above the water on a winter day, after a 3-minute dive.

Doom's eyes were abruptly opened wide, as his consciousness jerked violently into reality. His body was still shaking, with sweat pouring down his forehead as well.

As his vision focused enough to allow him to see the rubble in the midnight darkness surrounding his place of sleep for today, he suddenly realized something quite important.

The shaking did not disappear with the rest of the dream…

In fact, it only kept increasing.

Only it was the ground shaking, not Flynn himself.

Of _course_ it was! His long dead brother wasn't _really_ choking him! In reality, it all ended (and begun) quite differently. The entire thing was merely a nightmare.

Absentmindedly wiping a tear from his eye, Doom collected his tools of survival (and reloaded them as well) and attached his combat helmet to its proper place, on the shoulders of his suit. The helmet closed around his head comfortably, giving Doom some sense of security.

Doom now turned his attention to the shaking.

At first he considered it to be an earthquake (not that rare in LA), but he quickly realized it had a rhythm.

_That_ could only mean one thing – something the size of at LEAST a Cyberdemon is approaching dangerously close to his hideout.

The approaching thing was either exactly that (Doom quickly dismissed this possibility, only because he really didn't want to confront that dreaded option), or a Mastermind.

Or a new type.

Either way, he better get lost, or he'll be staring down the barrel of a humongous rocket launcher or something alike.

Quickly pushing all ammunition for his weapons to the appropriate pockets, Doom rounded the corner of the alley that he hoped would lead him away from the approaching danger.

*THUMP!*

Holy hell! It's getting close!

*THUMP!*

Run run run!

Passing quickly through different alleys across several bigger streets, Doom soon felt the shaking subside.

Boy, that was sure as hell close!

He stopped to rest a little bit. Soon he'll have to start searching for a new place to spend the rest of the night at.

Just as he thought that, the shakes started increasing again.

He took a sharp breath and prepared to dash towards the next alley, when at the least appropriate moment an Imp materialized just in front of Doom, teeth exposed in a deadly smile.

Doom flinched. His hands were empty of weapons – he was too pre occupied with running away to remember such a small detail as other, human-sized monsters.

As quick as Doom was, the Imp was quicker. After all, all _it_ had to do was to summon its natural (or rather unnatural) energies, to unleash a fireball upon his nemesis. No clumsy artificial tools involved.

Of course, the Imp's typical mad temper and lack of finesse worked to Doom's favor. Because the alley was so small and cramped, the best Doom could do was to jump into cover behind a fairly large trash container just as the Imp lowered his arm to strike. An orange flash illuminated the alley for a brief second, as the unholy energy released itself from the Imp's hand and thundered forth. The fireball created a basketball-sized blackened smoking hole in the rusty metallic container, and heated the surrounding air so that water fumes were visible with the naked eye. Doom was not hurt too badly though, as he was pretty comfy within his protective combat suit.

He returned the favor to the Imp by popping out of his cover with the Shotgun ready at hand.

Suddenly, in a green flash, the Imp was gone as quickly as it appeared.

But… Doom hasn't fired a shot! The Imp just ran away!

Doom looked around, ready for the Imp to re-appear, but everything remained as quiet.

Doom frowned, his mind attempting to cope with the unexpected behavior of the monster. Ran away! A demon! From a fight!

He was completely preoccupied with the question 'WHY', looking around the place where the Imp disappeared.

His mind did not register the fact that the ground was still; the shaking has dissipated a while ago.

His mind did not register the massive shadow that was blocking the faint moonlight, preventing it from reaching the alley.

All he noticed was that there's something annoying in his peripheral vision.

Doom turned to face the thing.

As he looked towards the entrance to this alley through which he entered here, he could not see the street beyond it.

For a REALLY massive creature was blocking his vision.

Doom looked up, and saw the creature's stare fixed straight at him!

---

Author's Concluding Notes: Well, that's it for the 3rd chapter. A small cliffhanger ^_^ Don't worry, I'm not planning on quitting to write this story, although sometimes I'm out of the right mood, so ya'll have to bear with me…

PS: sorry, the thing in the warehouse will not be the Heavenly Pig of Evil Smiting (sorry for the spoiler…), for the simple reason I don't know what the heck do you mean (I'm referring to Janus Camaren, of course). Perhaps I'll include it later in the story though, if I figure out what this is (BTW, I'm STILL writing this BEFORE the chapter! The _concluding notes_ people!!! I must be INSANE (.)_(') ) (oh I admit, I edited these notes after I finished the chapter L)

Oh and one more thing! Meet the guest star for today, it is the Gordon Detector. This device uses a highly developed intelligent AI system to send a verbal warning every time a Gordon Freeman is roaming nearby. Let's hear what it has to say.

_Gordon Detector:_ ***WARNING!*** ***WARNING!*** Gord…

= {{{BOOM}}} =

Hehe, sorry, I had to do that. You don't want this can-head to spoil the story for ya, do you?

Anyway, see ya in the next chapter.


	4. IV

Author's Notes: Blizrun, I've corrected the mistake about Doom being right-handed. Sure it's small, but it's better to stick onto as much "real" (i.e. canon) details as possible. I also request your permission to use the excellent weapon-sound words (*Blam!* *Shunk**-**Chunk*) from your story. They're just so good, I can't think of anything better (the pitiful "bang" for every single firearm in Doom's arsenal starts to be annoying). Plz? And about the garg… what are you talking about? I never said it was a gargantua there! Why, it could be… sigh… am I so obvious? Yes, it's garg.

Well, onto the next chapter (meet… garg…).

***********

CHAPTER 4

***********

"Shit…." Was all Doom managed to murmur, as the single red eye of the unfamiliar monster continued to stare at him.

This very big fellow was as tall as a Cyberdemon, but looked twice as massive. The huge head with the wicked-looking sharp teeth, and sinister eye, added to the horrible image of the cyclops.

Moving as slowly as he could afford, Doom started to back out of the alley, always watching for the face and the unblinking eye of the creature.

He was almost out, when a huge roar, sounding like a thousand horns blowing, shook the alley, causing some rubble to go down from the old buildings walls.

The red eye suddenly started to glow a lot brighter, casting a ghostly red light onto the dirty cement.

This reminded Doom of the horrible nightmare he was having only minutes ago. He started to hope that this wasn't a bad sign.

Soon, he found out that indeed it was.

With another deafening roar, the creature suddenly lunged forward.

"Crap!" squealed Doom like a little frightened girl. That behavior was pretty brave though, considering the kind of gargantuan monstrosity that was facing him. Any other person in his place would've probably crap his pants on the spot.

There was never born a Cyberdemon who could run as quickly as this thing. Like a gargantuan crossbreed of a tank and a speeding train, the bluish green thing thundered towards the frozen Doom, causing garbage containers the size of pickup trucks that stood on its way to fly like they were weightless.

Finally, the psychological charm that held Doom in place broke, and he started to sprint down the much wider street onto which the alley exited, trying to put some distance between him and the living nightmare behind.

He should've known better.

Once it gained some open ground, the creature turned out to be even quicker. With huge ground-rumbling steps it followed Doom, who was forced to enter another alley. This time, he picked an even narrower alley, so the creature could not follow him there. Doom could feel it approaching, the ground shakes echoing through his own body and combat suit.

Quickly exiting to the other street, he continued to run.

He ran and ran, but again was surprised when in a green flash, a brown Buggy appeared, charging up a green lightning bolt the second it spotted Doom.

Of course, Doom could use the time it took the Buggy to charge-up in any way he liked…

*BANG*

Doom felt the comforting recoil of the shotgun against his body. This kind of feeling always gave him an utter feeling of security, at least when he was facing something more conventional, something that he could still understand.

The Buggy was not impressed by Doom's weapon, and he demonstrated it by sending an electricity bolt worth of thousands of volts at his opponent.

*WABZZZZ*

*HUMPH!*

Doom was caught off guard. The bolt impacted his stomach, sending him, tumbling, three meters back.

Fortunately, his combat suit was made of an isolator plastic material. It saved Doom from certain death, but the bolt was powerful enough to somewhat hurt him nevertheless.

Now he was really pissed off.

He jumped to his feet, and set off at a charge towards the creature, screaming.

The Buggy was not intimidated by this pathetic human. He was occupied with charging up his next electrical attack.

Doom, of course, knew ahead of time that the Buggy is doomed.

*BANG!*

The shotgun blasted again, this time aimed more carefully by its owner, to the Buggy's head. That, coped with the now closer distance between the two, assured the quick and certain death of the bugger, as it's head exploded like a melon, sending green liquid splashing all over the place.

All this was accompanied by a powerful roar.

The huge creature found him again.

"Leave me alone, dammit!" Doom roared in return. Of course, his pitiful barking was nowhere as powerful and impressive as the monster's one.

The creature went quiet, almost seeming puzzled.

Then it lifted its huge left foot, and stomped down hard on the ground. Cement debris flew to multiple directions, causing small impact craters in nearby walls and objects.

Doom almost lost his balance, as the old beaten road shook, protesting against the violent treatment.

But that was merely the edge of the iceberg.

A red line of superheated matter, originating from the cyclops foot, started to advance toward Doom at high subsonic speed.

That left Doom with slightly less than two seconds to dodge the thing, which he marvelously did. The edge of the strange line slightly bruised him though, leaving angry black marks on his otherwise green suit.

In return, Doom released a barrage of shells in the creature's direction.

Bad idea.

The creature's eye glowed brighter, quietly sneering at Doom.

These little lead shells were less than nothing to this walking tank, and Doom realized this very quickly as the creature started to run toward him yet again, causing the ground to shake… yet again.

This time, Doom was going to stay and fight. Doom could run forever, but he couldn't hide – he has already learned that the creature could find him anywhere, perhaps by scent or some other means.

Doom watched the creature as it grew larger, towering above him, and wondered if it was simply going to run over him and squash him like an insect.

It didn't.

Doom jumped neatly to the side, making a pretty clumsy flip though, as two bright jets of flames unexpectedly erupted from the creature's palmless arm tips.

They hit the road where Doom was a second ago, and after the creature stopped spraying them and turned to face Doom, he could see that the road was now glowing red-hot, and slightly shifting like it was no longer entirely solid.

Those jets must be damn hot!

No time to shoot! Doom took off running, fully knowing that this thing, while still not measuring to the terrible Cyberdemon (in Doom's opinion, at least), was too powerful for him to down with his present arsenal of weapons.

(**out-of-story note: **there's your answer to whether he has rockets, Blizrun!)

Yes, he planned to fight at first. But the situation was pretty much hopeless anyway

Now, how is he going to loose this huge thing with overgrown Bunsen burners off his tail?

Hearing a high-pitched wine behind him, Doom dodged another superheated red line and continued to run, zigzagging between alleys.

But he could always feel the ground shaking stronger and stronger each time he slowed down even a bit. Wasn't there any way to run? What the heck does this thing want from him, can't it pick unto somebody else?

The chase went on and on for quite some time.

Each time Doom stopped to rest, panting, he would feel the creature getting closer and closer to him. In contrast with Doom, it apparently never got tired.

Once in a while a creature materialized nearby, and Doom was forced to take it out before the monster chasing him could catch-up. All the while he never saw a single Demon – only electricity-shooting Buggies and some acid spitters. It was as if they knew about the powerful hostile being roaming around, and stayed clear from the area.

As the chase continued, the grey, unkempt buildings got taller and stood closer and closer to each other. He was entering deeper into the central part of the city.

It was easier to confuse his tracks here, but the creature was never too far behind, and generally kept up the pace with Doom.

And there came the point, after more than an hour, that Doom felt he could not go on much longer.

After entering yet another alley, he chose to approach a small metal door in the building's wall instead of getting out on the other side.

The door was locked, but the lock was rusty and barely hanging unto its place after all the years. Doom broke it with a kick with no problems.

He entered the building.

For one thing, it was dark. Near-total darkness. That was part of the reason Doom never slept inside abandoned buildings, preferring to sleep in open alleys instead (except for especially bad weather) – if a Demon would find him in the darkness, Doom would find himself at a huge disadvantage, since his night-vision goggles stopped working almost two years ago now, and all Demons (even infested humans – Zombies) had the natural ability to see, or at least find their way, in the dark.

There were other reasons for which he chose alleys – confined space was one of them, danger of the building collapsing was another. All this he learnt after several very narrow escapes from buildings at night.

But this time he entered a 10-floor big hotel, in hopes that the creature would either lose his tracks inside the cement walls, or find itself unable to bring down or breach such a big building and will leave.

Either way, Doom's legs were very soar, and combined with a sharp pain in the stomach convinced him that he has to find an alternative to running.

From what little he could see, he was in what appeared to be a former kitchen, with rotten remains of food littering the floor. The sight wasn't exactly encouraging his appetite, and he was really thankful that he still had his trustful helmet, that was blocking _almost_ all of the smell.

He quickly found the exit to the big dinner room (hardly in a better condition than the kitchen), and from there to the lobby and the stairs going up.

He climbed the stairs very carefully, fearing a collapse, but his luck was apparently still with him, as he slowly kept climbing without any consequence.

When he first entered the lobby the ground shakes got weaker, like they were blocked by the building's foundation, but now Doom felt them increasing.

He concluded that the creature must be right outside the building.

A quiet moan – it was actually a muffled roar coming from the outside – confirmed his deduction.

The building started to shake slightly, and Doom was forced to grab the safety rails in the darkness. The rails shrieked and bent slightly in protest, but fortunately held.

The shaking stopped and Doom started climbing again, faster than before.

After a couple of minutes he popped his head out of a hatch on the roof.

Seeing nothing threatening, Doom pulled himself out of the hatch and stood, cleaning the white dust off of his suit.

He listened.

Nothing.

The ground was still.

No roars.

That kind of stillness usually meant something was going to surprise him from behind, and he quickly spun around in search for a target, but nothing appeared here to harass him.

He went over to the edge of the roof, just in time to see the massive green back of the creature, rounding a far corner, approximately half-a-mile from his current position.

He was finally gone.

Doom took a moment to look around.

While he wasn't standing at a particularly high spot, the sight was very much different than from the ground level.

Instead of giant concrete tombs towering above him, Doom now saw the city _exactly_ like he saw it last time he was standing at a high spot, months ago.

Except for the occasional empty spot were a building or two collapsed, the city looked almost undamaged. But it was only a corpse, a dead remains of the city it used to be. The buildings still stood high and proud, challenging mother nature in their noble posture. But not a flicker of light was to be seen. In the days before the invasion, when there was a major power outage, some lights could still be clearly and easily seen – cars passing by, police and fire department search-lights, trying to locate survivors in troubled buildings. But now, it was dark. The huge blocks of buildings stood on their foundation in a citywide pool of shadow. Like in a colossal, global-scaled graveyard. Actually, Los-Angeles in its current state was not that far from being exactly that. Also, the lack of any noise of any kind reminded Doom yet again of the great loss of humanity. He watched the city quietly, watched the buildings standing oblivious to the catastrophe, watched the even more oblivious stars (that could be hardly seen due to something the Demons done with the atmosphere) mocking him, all alone, left behind along with these buildings.

Doom turned his gaze away from the stars, and from the city.

He went to the hatch climbed down and almost closed it, when something attracted his attention.

A flash of orange lights, somewhere between the skyscrapers.

He pulled himself back to the roof, and watched a swarm of orange dots getting larger.

Lost Souls.

Again.

They were apparently approaching his position, and FAST!

He dived in and closed the hatch. He pressed his ear onto the cold metal of the hatch, attempting to listen to the screeches of the living skulls.

According to the sound of it, they flew by right above the roof.

He opened the hatch again, and saw them streaking in the opposite direction from where they arrived from.

Their destination was apparently a series of yellow and green flashes, somewhere in a familiar place down there, several miles away…

Doom approached the edge of the roof, and bent down to try to see better.

In the frequent flashes of light he was able to barely recognize that street.

The warehouse!

The skulls arrived to their destination, and the flashes started again, even brighter this time.

Doom continued to watch.

It took some time until the flashes started to be rarer and rarer, until the street was dark again. Sunrise was not too far away now. It was a good time to make the raid!

Doom ran toward the hatch and hurried down the stairs.

He has to make it to the warehouse before another wave of enemies appears!

---

Doom was eying the target warehouse and the adjacent street.

Except for the plentiful monstrous corpses, there was also a modest number of Imps present.

They were patrolling the area in circular patterns that centered, of course, on the warehouse.

Although the defenses seemed to be light, Doom was very confident that they have plentiful and easily available reinforcements guarding their backs. After all, they had some serious enemy hordes to repel…

And Doom was _not_ going to take his chances in a direct assault…

Moving along the street, he was racing from cover to cover as quietly as he could – what wasn't much considering his strictly assault-oriented training and the combat boots on his feet...

The occasional rubble was his only friend in this risky situation – the Demons could see into shadows and similar hideouts a lot better than Doom himself could.

Fortunately, the Imps were obviously a little staggered after the latest attack, and Doom could take advantage of that to pass between patrols, unnoticed.

A last thrust, and he made it to the warehouse – the door he noted earlier on the sidewall wasn't locked, and easily opened and allowed him to step into the big closed space inside.

The place probably contained some stuff and crates in the past, but currently it stood completely empty. The Demons must've purposefully thrown everything out, to make place for this _something_ they are currently trying to defend.

Doom looked around the dark place, and spotted something sitting right in the middle of the room.

It looked like… a ring? And there was some kind of heavy machinery attached to it with spaghetti-like colorful wires.

He approached carefully to the thing, Shotgun in hand, ready for anything that might jump from the shadows.

But nothing happened.

As he got really close to the ring, he noticed a faint green shimmering inside it.

He extended his hand toward it, and felt static electricity tickling his hairs.

Then, something very unexpected – or rather expected? – happened.

In a myriad green flashes, countless Demons appeared in the room with Doom.

Doom felt a tingle of panic, but relaxed a bit when he saw most of them were storming out of the warehouse main doors, undoubtedly here to repel a new enemy attack.

But some of them turned to Doom.

Only some of them. Not more than a hundred, including a few really nasty ones, such as Mancubuses…

Without much thought, Doom jumped head first toward the ring.

He has already realized it was some kind of portal, although it's purpose and importance remained a bit unclear.

Anyway, it was his only option to survive…

Doom passed through the flickering field, that sent static electricity through his suit, and smacked on the floor on the other side, right in front of a Hell Knight.

"It didn't work!" was his first and last thought when he saw the hellish goat lifting its paw above his head.

The paw smacked into the floor where Doom lied a second ago.

Doom was not there.

He was someplace else, somewhere very far from LA…

Author's Note: What do you think? Liked that? Care for more? Review!


	5. V

Author's Note: And here is the 5th chapter!!! After a very long break, I finally wrote it! Unfortunately, with the beginning of the busy (**BUSY!!!**) 2nd year in highschool, I don't think I'll have much time to write… especially considering my guitar lessons… oh well, I'm sure I could steal an hour or two (or three or four or…) to write the next, 6th chapter. I bet you'd expect it a lot after this one!

And to Blizrun – first of all: that monster WAS a gargantuan! I was just kidding when I said it isn't! How thoroughly you've been reading the previous chapter anyway? And about the idea with Freeman saving Doom, or the Administrator… those all are good ideas, but unfortunately (for you) I already got other stuff planned for little Doom (and Gordon…) You'll see… If I were you I would use those ideas in your own stories though. They're good. They just don't have a place in mine, that's all.

ON THE LAST CHAPTER: Doom was hurled toward an unfamiliar destination via the alien Portal™. What awaits him on the other side?

Enough babbling. Let's get to the juicy part!

***********

CHAPTER 5

***********

His attention was entirely focused on the little blobs of pale flesh ahead of him. Those things were not very fast or maneuverable, but when they leaped… they were completely lethal.

Suddenly, the first Headcrab screeched and leaped, aiming to his head. His Glock has eliminated the problem with a couple loud "POW"'s, but there were more of its kind from where it came…

In a fury of screeches, exploding gunpowder, lead bullets and sharp hook-shaped claws, half-a-dozen tiny corpses fell to the floor, bleeding green all over the metallic plating.

He breathed in relief. Those Headcrabs were nasty, but not much of a threat to his health, as long as he was armed and ready for anything.

He reloaded, then reholstered the pistol, then drew his M4 carbine (he scavenged it from a marine's corpse several hours earlier). Checked the ammo… more than enough.

Suddenly, like it was all part of a planned performance, his ears detected the familiar sound of a teleporting being, directly behind him.

His reflexes served him well – his finger depressed the trigger of the black-colored tool of destruction in his hands even before he fully finished the spin.

---DATATATATATA!---

(((MOAN)))

THUMP

Another Bullchicken has met its fate, facing probably one of the most dangerous men currently trapped in the Black Mesa Research Facility.

But then…

***BWIIIIZZZZZZZZZZZ***

Another teleportation sound, again directly behind him.

His reflexes were as sharp as ever, when he spun around and allowed the bullets to rip apart their target…

---

When the devious Knight lifted it's mighty paw, Doom was ready for anything.

Anything but what actually happened.

Suddenly, a green flash blinded his eyes. Doom screamed in agony, but could not hear himself – his hearing has been damaged too.

He felt the floor slip away as gravity suddenly decided to stop working. Doom's eyes have stopped aching, but everything remained black. He floated through the darkness, with a feeling like he's falling to a bottomless pit, with only the sound of his own breath accompanying him.

Then, he saw something… something green… like a glowing ball in the distance…

In a tiny fraction of a second, the green globe has grown a thousand-fold, engulfing Doom entirely. A flash of green light followed, as strong as the first one, and Doom was suddenly blinded and deafened by a strong light and… and gunfire?

As the confusing thoughts and impressions rushed into his stunned mind, he suddenly felt sharp pain inches above his right knee. The HUD of his helmet showed him that his combat armor was pierced at that spot.

Doom, although not very bright, was experienced enough to realize that there's one hell of shooting in this place.

And he's standing right in the middle of it.

His feet sprung into action, seeking for cover before his mind could even follow, and in a moment he was already crouching behind a metal crate of some kind. The shooting immediately stopped.

So whoever was shooting out there, Doom was obviously his primary target…

Suddenly, realization dawned upon Doom. He went through the portal! And now he's in a very unfamiliar place, in some kind of bunker or facility, probably underground judging by the layout of the corridor.

Doom re-checked his armor status.

Apparently, his suit was pierced in four different places before he managed to get to cover.

Well, wherever he was currently located, Doom was going to survive. He'd better show this bozo, whoever he was, that he should be more careful when messing with a veteran of Phobos…

Doom popped out of his improvised cover, a shotgun pointing to the direction where he assumed the enemy would appear…

He immediately saw his enemy.

The enemy saw him too.

Doom pressed the trigger, only to see most of his spread bounce off of the gleaming orange armor his opponent wore.

With silent determination and cool professionalism, Gordon Freeman fired back…

---

"Lieutenant Peterson, sir!" the Corporal spoke into his communication gear. "This is Corporal Baker calling Lieutenant Peterson! I have visual of Gordon Freeman, fighting some guy in a green HEV suit or something! They are 30 meters ahead of us, sir, and they still don't have a clue that me and my squad are watching them! I repeat…"

"No need to repeat that, I have perfectly fine hearing, Corporal." Came the response on Baker's frequency.

"What are your orders, sir?"

"Isn't that obvious Baker? Kill Freeman, or better yet, capture the motherf***er!"

"But… but this other guy…"

"Order your squad to capture and interrogate him. You say he's armed? If he resists, you have my permission to use lethal force – shoot to kill. If anything unexpected happens, I will take full responsibility. Any more questions, Corporal?"

"Sir, no sir!"

"Good. Very good. Now make me proud and get that pesky Freeman once and for all!"

---

---DATATATATATATA!--- ---DATATATATATATATA!---

Streaking bullets filled the air around Doom, as he aimed the shotgun at the orange figure and repeatedly squeezed the trigger.

The only effect it seemed to have on the orange guy was purely psychological – Doom could've swore that he saw a few shells hit the man's chest, but without much effect besides a few barely visible scratches. This armor of his seemed to be at least equivalent to Doom's own.

Doom continued to pump the shotgun and fire frantically. His opponent at least made visible effort to dodge or hide from Doom's fire – so he wasn't invulnerable after all, or else he would've ignored the shells completely.

***CLICK***

Oh-oh… Time to reload…

Doom ducked under cover and started working frantically to insert the small shells into the shotgun, all the meanwhile hearing the sound of ricocheting bullets mere inches above his head.

There, the shells are in place.

Doom waited, and the moment his opponent stopped shooting popped out of cover.

The sight was very pleasing – his opponent was reloading his weapon as quickly as he could, but wasn't hiding behind any cover.

Time to take the initiative on this battle…

The man's eyes widened behind his large spectacles, as the _entire _spread Doom shot hit him perfectly in the torso.

The momentum pushed him back and upwards, causing him to fly through the air like a missile and land on the floor, rolling slightly and stopping on his back. Doom aimed at him, waiting for him to move, but the body remained silent.

Looks like he finally got him!

Doom came out of cover, and approached the man.

Lying spread-eagled on the floor, he looked pretty pathetic – his glasses, while surprisingly intact, were sitting very askew on his nose.

Doom approached the body, and kicked it slightly.

No response.

Doom crouched besides the body to check for pulse – only to find a handgun pointing at point-blank to his unarmored neck.

"Fooled ya, didn't I?" sneered Freeman at the foolish man in green. "Now put down the shotgun very slowly, or else I will be forced to severe the connection of your spinal chord with the rest of your body!"

Though Freeman couldn't see it through the helmet, Doom gritted his teeth in rage.

Nevertheless, he complied, fearing that the man is serious.

"There, much better!" Freeman was visibly relieved. This man, while easily fooled around, was a very tough nut in battle. Actually, the last time Freeman was sweating like this was when he was dodging the three tentacles in the rocket room… "It'll be even better if you raised your hands up high… there you go! Good boy! Now, I don't have the time to chat, I wish I did but that's unfortunately not the case, so I'm going to ask this only one, single time…" Freeman stared at the figure, clad in advanced armor like Freeman has never seen before. "I'm Gordon Freeman. And who the heck are you?"

Doom thought what should he answer… But then, something funny happened. For some reason, the tricky man suddenly pointed his handgun to a direction somewhere far to Doom's left.

'This is it!' Doom thought. 'This is the time to strike!'

But all his thoughts were smashed to pieces and forgotten, when a single shot, emanating from Freeman's pistol not 20 inches from Doom's face, rang through the air.

Doom waited, stunned.

Then, he heard a thump of a falling body behind him. He looked behind him, to see a body of a man, wearing… wearing 20th century US Marines uniform! He was also lying in a pool of red blood, centered on his head.

Doom looked at Freeman, and although Freeman couldn't see Doom's eyes, they understood each other perfectly well.

A ¼ second later, Doom's hand shot toward the shotgun on the floor nearby. Simultaneously, Freeman retrieved a black carbine from somewhere within his strange suit.

"Go go go! Get 'em, marines!"

Marines stormed into the wide corridor from different directions, weapons screaming and booming. Grenades sailed through the air to the location previously occupied by Freeman and Doom, but both heroes were by now far enough from the explosions.

---DATATATATATA!!!--- ===BLAM! shunk chunk BLAM! shunk chunk===

Marines dropped to the floor like flies.

The remaining ones started to retreat, laying covering fire. Doom and Freeman immediately followed, dodging the bullets and hiding from view whenever they could.

Doom used simple sign language to attract Freeman's attention. 'You proceed, I'll go around. Attract their attention, I'll come on their tops from behind' Doom told Freeman in military hand signs.

"What? I'm not military, I don't know what this means. Just tell me what you want"

Doom rolled his eyes. What an idiot.

"I want to flank them. Go on this way and attract their attention, so that I could sneak on them from behind and waste them". All this, of course, was said during constant motion and between shootings.

Freeman nodded and went charging to the marine's direction, while Doom climbed a nearby ladder he saw, to a ledge hanging above the room in which they fought.

---DATATATATA!---

The sound of Freeman's weapon was instantly drowned in the sounds of many similar rifles, shooting back at the bold scientist.

Doom went on, but then his plan was nearly ruined when a soldier suddenly leaped in front of his face, and landed the butt of his rifle right into the visor of Doom's helmet. Although the plastiglass was armored, it was hardly in good condition after years without any kind of maintenance – white cracks spread like wildfire and obscured part of Doom's vision. The soldier, a corporal judging by the rank insignia, pointed the barrel to Doom's cracked visor and prepared to fire.

Unfortunately for him, Doom wasn't quite as stunned as he hoped he'd be.

---DATATATA!---

The sound nearly deafened Doom, who ducked just in time. The bullets passed harmlessly above his head, and he was free to kick the corporal's nuts, what he did. The corporal folded in two, dropping his carbine in the process.

Doom sneered.

There was no need to kill the poor man. He removed the now-useless helmet and prepared to move on, when a wave of long-forgotten memories full of pain washed over him…

-

There he was, back on the horrible moon of Mars, called Phobos.

"Henson here! Walton is down! I repeat, Walton is…" the voice in the combat commlink was abruptly cut and replaced by static.

Flynn wasn't paying attention.

He was busy at trying to survive what will be later called **P**hobos with a capital P, and a silent meaningful look in the eyes.

Currently, the battle was simply called _Massacre_ by its participants. At least by the human ones…

Flynn tried to pop out of cover, but the hail of fire and energy forced him back into the trench. Hearing a sharp scream Flynn looked to his right. One of his comrades wasn't as quick as Flynn at getting back to cover. He paid the price – his body now lied, beheaded, at the bottom of the trench.

Just another body in a growing pile…

Suddenly, through the babble of panicked voices coming out of the commlink, Flynn heard other voices, a lot closer to him.

"Grenade!!! Grenade!!!" "Evacuate the trench!!" "Taggart, move your ass!"

Flynn suddenly realized everybody was running out of the trench, ignoring the murderous shooting outside. At least a dozen troops were instantly hit and fell slowly to the ground, buying some time for the others.

Although Flynn Taggart knew there wasn't much chance to survive outside the protective cover of the deep trench, he also knew that if he stays, certain death awaits him. The demons adopted standard Human grenades they have managed to procure – only they were improved by unholy magic, increasing their yield by nearly 1.5 times.

If Flynn won't be out of the trench by the time the grenade that fallen into it went off, he wouldn't be merely beheaded – he would be utterly vaporized.

Flynn panicked (like most of the soldiers by now) and started to frantically climb the steep wall of the trench, slipping several times on the dust that covered any horizontal surface on this tiny god forsaken moon.

Here! He's almost out of the trench! If he could just climb a little bit…

_BOOM!!!!!!!!!_

Although there wasn't any atmosphere at Phobos, the shockwave freely passed through the ground. Flynn was blinded and hurled out of the trench by the explosion. Like in a dream, he saw himself lifted into the air, then falling slowly, like a leaf, due to the low gravity conditions.

Although the fall seemed slow in comparison to a full 1G fall, it was fast enough to push all the air out of Flynn's lungs when he hit the ground.

In addition, he heard a very faint hiss of air escaping out of his suit. Because his head has hit the ground when he landed, hi visor was now cracked.

Cracked. Just like now. And that was the small detail that reawakened this long lost memory.

Doom could remember how he tried to get back up, only to feel horrible pain in his broken right arm. The air was slowly but surely escaping through the cracks in his visor.

It's a matter of minutes until he will die of decompression.

Of course, the harsh realities of Phobos will not allow his that much to live. Flynn could see, through the haze of shock and pain, that an Imp was heading directly towards him, a very evil grin on its face.

Flynn was horrified. He has heard many stories about soldiers tortured and eventually eaten alive by Imps and Demons. He preferred decompression.

As he was struggling to grab his sidearm with his undamaged but weak right hand, he realized there was no time. The Imp was already towering above his prone form.

Flynn has already reconciled with his imminent death.

But he was allowed to live, when a very precise Plasma round slammed into the skull of the demon, wasting him on the spot.

"Get up Taggart, you're going to be just fine" It was his superior, Lieutenant Mikell!

Flynn looked up. His commander looked at his helmet and gasped - "Oh shit, your visor's screwed up…" suddenly, fireballs grazed the area surrounding the two. "Platoon #6! Covering fire!" screamed Mikell into his com-unit, and instantly loyal troops rushed into enemy fire to cover his and Flynn's retreat.

Eventually, everything turned out to be fine. Flynn was brought to a pressurized mobile field hospital and his visor was replaced. The fracture in his arm was treated, but it was really bad. Flynn would probably find it difficult to aim with his right hand for the rest of his life. That's what driven him to learn using his left hand instead, until he mastered it just like his right hand before Phobos.

Reinforcements came within short order, shuttles with the emblem of the United Nations landed on the dust-covered improvised landing fields, and the demons were pushed back.

From this day on, Lt. Mikell was a close friend of Flynn's, occasionally coming to his house for dinner after the war has ended.

It was especially painful when Flynn saw him, a few weeks after the beginning of the Earth invasion, roaming around the streets with a pack of other soulless zombies. Flynn, now Doom, was forced to kill him when he confronted him and his buddies. Yet another friend lost.

-

Doom has returned to reality. It was time to execute his plan…

-

Dead troops, worth of an entire squad, were lying around in pools of blood, unmoving.

Doom and Freeman were breathing heavily. Both were hit multiple times. Both armor was seriously damaged and required some kind of repairs. The HEV suit Gordon wore detected a minor fraction in his ribs.

Gordon didn't require the suit to explain the sudden pain in his chest.

But, during the past hours, Freeman endured much worse…

Doom didn't know what to think of all this. Where is he? What is happening? Was he transported back in time by that portal in the warehouse? Now that his mind wasn't busy at thinking how to outsmart the hostile marines, he discovered that all these questions must have an explanation of some kind.

Surprisingly, Freeman's own thoughts were very similar.

One second he was breathing heavily, tired, along with Doom, and in the next one, his drawn Glock was pointing directly at the now-bare head of Doom.

"Where were we before we were interrupted? Weren't you going to tell me who the f*** you are?"

For a moment, Doom was startled. He also felt somewhat betrayed, but quickly realized that for this obviously civilian person, fighting side by side meant nothing more than doubled firepower and increased chances for survival. There wasn't any pride, any feeling of honor, respect, like soldiers or mercenaries sometimes feel.

And now, Doom's life was basically at this man's hands.

"All right, lower the gun. I'll tell you the whole story"

"I'm listening" Freeman replied. His gun hasn't moved an inch.

And Doom told him.

He told him everything, from Phobos, through the break between the wars, and then the apocalyptic invasion to Earth, from which Doom was somehow spared. And the latest events of his life, the new creatures appearing on the streets, the great battles of these creatures with the demons, and the portal through which Doom has ended up here.

Though listening politely from the outside, Freeman's thoughts haven't held much promise for Doom.

'The man must be nuts. What is this shit he's talking about? Demons? Invasion? Spaceships?' Freeman was pretty sure this man was a survivor of the Resonance Cascade, just like Freeman himself was. It seemed that the events, the deaths, the chaos, the monsters loose throughout the facility, have seriously affected this so-called 'Doom's sanity. Perhaps his advanced armor is some kind of new toy they were developing for the military. Who knows.

Freeman only knew that he couldn't leave such a threat behind him. This man was definitely dangerous – although Freeman wasn't sure if it was for his potent weaponry, skills of war that is every marine's wet dream, or his possible insanity.

If Freeman would've taken the time to think carefully, he would've remembered that Doom first appeared from thin air, accompanied by a green flash, just like most monsters. He would've also realized that Doom's tactical skills, posture and knowing military sign language were clues to his military origin, what was impossible if his 'experimental armor' is really a Black Mesa product. If that was the case, a scientist should've tested it.

Anyway, there were many more tiny clues to prove Doom's mental healthiness, but Freeman didn't had the time, nor patience to seek them out.

He was sure this man is insane, and his finger tightened on the trigger.

He was preparing to blast this man into kingdom come…


	6. VI

Author's Notes: First of all, I'm sorry for the long delay between chapters. Next, I would really like to thank everyone who reviewed my story; it brings me endless joy to know that other people enjoy my creation, just like I enjoy other people's creations. It's just so damn rewarding! J.

***********

CHAPTER 6

***********

---DATATATA!!!---

PING!PING!

The furious volley of bullets ricocheted from the wall above the security guard. He fired several shots from his Glock handgun toward his pursuers behind him, and kept running.

A bald, aging scientist was running at his side, breathing heavily. He had difficulties with keeping up, but he had no choice. Those marines were hunting down everybody, not only the alien creatures, but also all personnel and security staff as well.

"Rosenberg, can't you keep up!?" shouted the guard, while firing behind him. A lucky shot hit the helmet of a pursuing soldier with a loud PING, causing him to grab his head in pain. His squad mates returned fire in such massive volume, that the guard was forced to grab Rosenberg by his arm and round a nearby corner in the corridor they were running through.

The sound of heavy military boots running was not far behind.

"Calhoun… I…" panted Rosenberg, but he kept running. There was simply no time to chat.

Yessssssss, an intersection!

Calhoun chose a random direction. He and Rosenberg were apparently running through the maze of some kind of anonymous scientific complex. Calhoun never been here in his entire life – he was usually posted far from here, close to the primary entrance to the humongous Black Mesa facility.

After many more random turns, Calhoun tried to listen.

Silence.

"I think we lost 'em, pal!" said Calhoun quietly.

Rosenberg was too busy to respond, sitting down right on the cold metal floor, panting very heavily.

"Come on, up you go!" said Calhoun while helping Rosenberg to his feet.

"Thanks Barney… I've already started to think that we won't make it…" he looked at Calhoun, a serious expression written on his face. "I owe you my life!"

"Nonsense." Calhoun stated, like it was a matter of fact. Rosenberg tried to protest, but Calhoun's hand gesture forbade any possible response.

They started to walk, alert for any sound.

They had no clue where they were, but they were apparently far from where they wanted to be – outside of the facility.

Then, they made another turn, and stopped in surprise.

The sight wasn't very typical – two men, one wearing a HEV suit, the other wearing an unfamiliar green armor. One of them was pointing a pistol at the other, whose hands were lifted up in the air.

Calhoun didn't know what was the meaning of this, and who these people were. He didn't care either. He was preparing to silently head back to the way they came from, when his plan was spoiled by non other than his relatively new friend, Rosenberg.

"Hey, Gordon! Gordon Freeman!" he shouted, pointing his finger at the HEV clad figure. "It's really you!".

Freeman was caught by surprise, and turned his head to see who's calling his name.

This was all Doom needed.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Doom went into action! (hey, it rhymes!)

-

The room was dark. The walls were padded in black cloth that seemed to absorb the only source of light in the room – a small desk lamp.

Sitting behind the desk was a male figure. His face was in the shadows, but he was clearly wearing a blue business suit, and a tie…

"You do understand that Gordon Freeman is a very dangerous man, right?", asked the mysterious figure, talking to the US Marines Corporal standing in front of him. "His victims can be counted in the dozens, and those are only the human ones. Underestimate him, and you're a man of the past! Get it?"

"Of course I do, sir", said Adrian Shepard in a firm, confident voice.

Good, this soldier is competent. The administrator smiled. What a good man! He will be very useful later on, very useful. That's provided he won't get killed by Freeman, of course.

"Good, then you are indeed ready. Get rid of Freeman. If somebody interferes with this operation, ANYBODY, you are allowed to terminate him. That holds especially true for a certain man in green armor… well, you'll see."

"I got it, sir! You can count on me to serve the United States of America proudly!"

The administrator smiled again. So young, so ideological… But this corporal _does_ have what it takes to do the job better than an average Lieutenant or Major.

"I know I can count on you, otherwise you wouldn't have been assigned to lead this mission. Dismissed."

Shepard turned toward the exit door, knowing what he must do next…

-

With a mighty leap, moving too quickly for Freeman to react, Doom jumped to the side. At the same time, his foot flew through the air, kicking Freeman's handgun out of his hand.

Still moving very quickly, Doom charged at his foe, pummeling Freeman with his fists.

"F***!" cursed Freeman, as his nose cracked and started bleeding. Doom was an unforgiving combatant indeed.

In the meanwhile, Rosenberg raised his tiny, .32 caliber handgun. He aimed it at Doom, who was punching Freeman's face like a punch bag. His hands were shaking from excitement and adrenalin. And from emotional shock as well.

Rosenberg pulled the trigger, but the bullet whizzed far to Doom's side, not coming even remotely closed to its target.

Rosenberg prepared to shoot again, but a firm hand grabbed his gun, preventing him from aiming.

"What the heck you think you're doing!?" Calhoun called. He couldn't understand anything that was going on!

"Calhoun! The man in the orange suit is Gordon Freeman", shouted Rosenberg. He was clearly stressed, nearly to the point of crying. He was only a scientist, not a man of war. "He works in the anomalous materials lab. He's one of ours, we got to help him!"

But before Calhoun could answer, he was forced to duck behind the nearby corner, pulling Rosenberg with him, as Doom drawn two pistols and released several shots toward the two.

PING

"Awww!" Shouted Calhoun, grabbing his head. One of Doom's bullets hit his helmet. "Are you OK!?" asked Rosenberg with a clearly panicked voice.

"I'm fine. The bullet didn't go through…" Calhoun answered tiredly while feeling the small hole in his helmet, grateful more than ever for this handy piece of equipment.

At last, Gordon Freeman received the chance to retaliate. Drawing his M4, he aimed it at carefully Doom's head.

But then, fate intervened.

The wall behind Freeman exploded, sending debris across the entire room. Freeman pulled the trigger of the M4 exactly at the moment a chunk of flying stone hit the barrel of his gun, spoiling his aim and causing the streaking line of bullets to miss Doom's head by inches.

Freeman cursed.

He turned his head around to see what happened to the wall. What he saw, is a large hole. Suddenly, a brown figure, wearing a strange green collar, exited from the other side. Another two followed the first one.

"Buggies…" gasped Doom.

"Slaves…" cursed Calhoun.

Freeman simply opened fire at the creatures, but more of them started to pour from the orifice, forcing Freeman to retreat. Doom, Calhoun and even Rosenberg started to rain lead over the alien horde of Slaves.

Many died, but more came, and soon the four found themselves running through the corridors with green lightning charges hitting nearby walls behind them. They ran in turns, each time two of them covered the retreat of the other two.

Doom ran, stopped for a second, fired back and kept running. His Colt made a hole in one of the creature's head, but three more passed by their comrade's body, releasing deadly electric charges that forced Doom to duck.

Suddenly, the corridor widened.

Doom, running ahead of everybody else, has suddenly found himself under the sights of a dozen guns, all held in the hands of marines that were lying behind a line of sandbags for protection.

Doom cursed, stopped sharply and ran back the way he came from, less than a second before the marines fired. The bullets, fortunately, missed Doom completely.

"Back! Back!!" shouted Doom to the first man that was running towards him. It was Freeman.

"We can't, the alien slaves…" Freeman answered.

Doom only had a second to realize that 'slaves' is how Freeman called the buggies, before Calhoun and Rosenberg came running from behind a corner, a green lightning storm on their tracks.

The four were forced to run through the room with the marines.

As Doom, who was in lead, entered the room from the corridor and sprinted in the direction of another, the marines aimed and fired at Doom. Thus, they were distracted from the other three men. Doom made it to another corridor. Calhoun, Freeman and Rosenberg were on their way, when the stream of slaves poured into the room.

The marines were forced to defend themselves from the aliens. The slaves forgot all about their former prey, and concentrated on the newest threat.

The four men ran through the new set of corridors, seeking to increase the distance between them and the threat of aliens and fellow humans as much as possible.

"In here!" Doom heard the blue-suited man shout. This man was apparently a security guard judging by the badge on his chest. How did the bald man called him? Oh right, Calhoun.

Calhoun was standing inside an elevator cabin, waiting for the other three to come.

"Good thinking, buddy!" Rosenberg congratulated him once they were on their way up the shaft. "If the slaves won the battle, they will not be intelligent enough to follow us through the elevator!"

Everybody else was quiet, as the elevator kept rising with a silent hum of electric engines.

Calhoun wondered what would they find when the elevator reaches its destination and the door opens. There was a panel in here, with buttons for different floors, but in his hurry Calhoun pressed a random button, and now he couldn't remember which one it was.

-CLICK-

-CLICK-

"Oh crap, not now…" Calhoun murmured.

Like they were a single person, Doom and Freeman drawn their guns, and pointed them at each other simultaneously, cocking them in the process (that's the -CLICK-)

The two men eyed each other, daring the other man to move first. The tension was incredibly high.

Rosenberg took a step, and positioned himself between the two.

"Really!" he squealed, clearly frightened. "You have to cooperate with each other! We…"

He didn't finish the sentence, as Doom pushed him violently with his free hand, sending him crashing into the wall. His other hand, pointing the loaded weapon at Freeman, didn't waver.

Calhoun helped Rosenberg onto his feet. Rosenberg and Calhoun were desperate. They couldn't let the two rivals blow each other to pieces!

Then suddenly, the elevator stopped.

The door opened.

Calhoun instantly wished it didn't.

An entire squad of marines was waiting there, guns pointed straight into the elevator cabin. Doom and Freeman turned their heads, seeing the marines. Both their guns were still pointed into each other's faces…

Author's Notes: How was that? I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter. I know that everyone's real story in the game is very different from the one portrayed here, but I do want to be original. For the purpose of this story, just assume that all of the events in the game Half-Life weren't accurate, and the real and complete version is the one written here ~_^ The same about the locations, I won't take them from the games, I'll simply made them up.


	7. VII

Well, hello again faithful readers! What a "quick" update, eh? L Anyway, regarding to what you said, Blizrun, about Shepard not supposed to kill Freeman, it's true. Calhoun also wasn't supposed to meet Freeman, and in fact a character from a completely different game (Doom) wasn't supposed to appear at Black Mesa at all! But that's the point where my story and the Half-Life timeline diverge – when Doom suddenly appeared in Black Mesa, seemingly out of nowhere, it triggered a chain reaction of events (fueled by the administrator, but I won't spoil anything here), and the events ended up differently. It's sort of a parallel HL universe. Because of all this, Shepard's Osprey wasn't shot-down, and he received new orders regarding Freeman. Hope that helps your suspension of disbelief a bit. 

To Mr. Unanimous: Chill. I mean it. I'm OK with criticism, but when you start to flame and insult me, that's where you cross the line. btw, I've send you an e-mail cuz I thought your second review was from someone else. Also, did you consider that my bad grammar is because english is not my native language, as I clearly stated, asshole? So keep your tongue clean and don't flame me, because next time you do shit like that, expect some response.

I would also like to say that I was a little afraid to introduce Rosenberg, Calhoun, Shepard and the admin. all in the same chapter (it was chapter 6), but eventually decided for it. Hope you readers are OK with that.

Also, I don't remember Rosenberg's private name, so I'd call him 'Alex'. If you know his canon name, send me an e-mail or leave a review, and I'll fix it ASAP.

Enjoy! (or don't enjoy, but at least be kind enough to keep the reviews/mails clean of personal insults)

***********

CHAPTER 7

***********

Four men, trapped in a small elevator, their weapons busy pointing at each other while an entire squad of trigger-happy troops are holding them in their sights.

Not an easy situation.

From this distance, their chance of missing is practically none.

*BWIIIIIZZZZZZZZZZ*

||CLANG!||

The elevator shook a bit when something heavy landed on its roof. The ceiling bulged slightly inwards, threatening to collapse on the heads of the four. The cables started to creak in protest.

In the meanwhile, the soldiers recovered from their initial surprise. Their Sergeant grinned, as he shouted "Fire!". He would surely get a promotion for wasting these birds. The prize on their, and especially Freeman's head was very high, and kept rising as more and more soldiers found their deaths by his hands.

The troops pulled the trigger without hesitation, pouring a steady stream of low-caliber high-velocity bullets into the elevator.

Only the elevator wasn't there, their bullets ricocheted from the metal wall of the empty shaft.

CRASH!

The elevator crashed to the floor. Apparently, the added weight of the creature on the roof was too much for the cables, they disconnected and the elevator fell just in time. Although the landing was pretty rough for all four men, it was a lot better than being holed with lead.

Doom was the first to recover. He opened his eyes, shook his ringing head, then rose heavily out of the debris of the shattered cabin floor. A moment afterwards, Freeman stood-up too. Calhoun moaned, and Freeman helped him to his feet, but Rosenberg wasn't moving.

Doom looked around, noting something else lying on the floor in the middle of the cabin. He approached the thing, and whistled.

"Damn…"

It was the mutilated body of a bullsquid. Straight above him was a gaping hole in the roof – apparently when the elevator slammed into the floor, this beast crashed straight through the roof and died.

Freeman and Calhoun were busy trying to wake the unconscious Rosenberg, when something happened. Freeman heard a quiet clattering sound, and felt something touching the boot of his suit.

Looking down to his feet, he saw something that made his heart miss a beat.

It was green in color, round in shape, and had a small hole where a ring-shaped pin used to be.

A grenade.

"Fire in the hole!!" he shouted, grabbing Rosenberg and helping Calhoun to lift his unconscious form on his shoulder. The four ran as quickly as he could out of the elevator and into the familiar corridor, with Calhoun, carrying Rosenberg, struggling to keep up with Doom and Freeman.

{{{BOOM!}}}

The explosion forced the men to the ground. The elevator, now considerably far behind them, filled with bright flames and clusters of razor-sharp, murderously fast shrapnel. But the only burned and torn flesh was that of the dead bullsquid. The soldiers failed yet again at their attempts to finish these men's lives.

Freeman breathed out a sigh of relief, while Calhoun dropped his scientist friend to the ground.

"Damn, we were f***ing lucky there…" Freeman murmured.

"We have to make some distance from the elevator!" Doom suddenly called. "Those marines might have the idea of getting down here and try again!"

Freeman nodded in agreement.

They stood up and started walking quickly, Freeman helping Calhoun with carrying Rosenberg.

Several minutes later, Calhoun lowered Rosenberg and dropped to the floor, exhausted. That served as a sign for the other two, and they too sat down, letting their bodies a moment of rest.

"OK, time out man!" panted Freeman. "We can't keep trying rip each other's throats with monsters and marines snooping all around!"

Doom raised an eyebrow.

After a moment of silence, Doom said, in a slow heavy voice: "Agreed".

Both men extended their right hands, and eyed each other suspiciously before shaking them.

'Finally', Calhoun thought. 'These idiots could've got me and Alex killed… What the hell was I thinking when I allowed this idiot to drag me into this?'

But from the outside, Calhoun's expression was as focused and serious as ever, although his pounding heart barely allowed him to keep that expression from coming down and be replaced by pain and fear.

After they shook hands, a minute of silence followed.

"Well…" Freeman broke the silence.

He looked at Doom, but did not receive any response.

"Tell me, errrrrr…. Doom…… what have you meant by this 'invasion from hell' you mentioned when… you know…"

Doom looked onto the nearby wall, thinking of some mysterious thoughts. Then, his gaze slowly shifted to Freeman's own.

"What I told you is true" he grunted. "Every single word of it".

Doom hesitated before continuing.

"It was years ago. You've already heard the main details. It was horrible. Worse than here… wherever 'here' is…" He lowered his head and tightened his lips. "I don't want to talk about it"

"Hey, it's alright, really!" Freeman meant to pat Doom on the back, but was stopped by the murderous look of the man.

There could be no mistake in the meaning of that gaze: Touch me, and die.

"Heh, sorry…" muttered Freeman, taking his hand back. "You know, your story really makes very little sense…"

"So none of this horror happened here?" asked Doom. Freeman shook his head in response.

Suddenly, Rosenberg made grunting noises, and all attention was instantly on him.

"Hey, wake up buddy!" Calhoun slapped him gently on the cheek. "How'd ya feel?"

"Like…. ARGH!… million bucks… OUGH!… I guess…"

"He's OK" stated Doom.

Calhoun looked at him angrily, but at heart he knew Doom was right.

"It's nothing… OUCH! Well, maybe I cracked a rib…"

"Come on, up you go…" Calhoun helped the scientist on his feet.

Doom, who had some medical training, opted to examine him, but Rosenberg insisted that he's fine.

"No, really, no need to worry! It's only a scratch!" for a second his face was washed by a painful expression, but returned to smile almost instantly. "Seriously! Now, Freeman!" He shook the man's hand enthusiastically. "Won't you tell us what's been with you since the accident?"

"Actually" Doom interfered, "I too am interested in some information. For starters, what is this place?"

"Welcome to the Black Mesa American research facility…" said Freeman sadly. "The only place in the world where cockroaches grow bigger than you do…"

"Black Mesa… No, never heard of it. Care to elaborate?"

"Actually, this is classified information. What means exactly zit in the face of our situation. So I'll tell you."

And told him he did. For the next half-an-hour, the four men gladly exchanged information. Doom became slightly more open and lively. Calhoun started to respect both men for their tremendous courage. But in Black Mesa, something dangerous is bound to come up once in a while. Even if you're sitting in one place.

*THUMP- THUMP- THUMP- THUMP- THUMP-*

The sound of heavy military boots running could be heard from the distance, along with some shouts.

All four leaped to their feet instantly. The sounds were getting louder.

"Hide!" whispered Freeman, and they all instantly scattered, preparing to ambush the troops that were heading this way. After half-a-minute, the sounds grew fainter, and disappeared in the distance.

"The danger has passed!" Freeman said, dropping from the air vent in the ceiling.

"Thank God!" said Rosenbeerg, coming out from behind the corner – the best cover he could come up with.

"Damn, we were lucky this time…" Freeman wiped his forehead of sweat. "We can't forget that we're in a dangerous situation. We must remain alert!"

"Yes. And leave our differences BEHIND as well!" commented Calhoun, looking back and forth at Doom and Freeman.

Both men nodded, and upon seeing the other making this simple gesture both felt a wave of relief.

"By the way… ummmm… Where are we heading?"

Rosenberg was the one to ask this important question, that nobody so far thought to ask.

"I just wanna get out, to see my wife again!" Calhoun stated, his voice filled with emotion. "And you, Alex, are coming with me!"

Rosenberg did not protest.

"I'm headed for the Lambda section" Freeman shrugged, like he was stating the obvious. "I was told someone can help me there… and my help is needed in return…"

Doom was the only one who didn't know what to answer.

"I'll come with you… Gordon…" he finally said. "Maybe this 'Lambda team' knows something about the portal I went through. Or why are the demons who invaded my world are fighting with those who invaded yours."

Freeman nodded.

"Barney, Alex…" Freeman said. "You can join us if you want to. Perhaps you'll find an opportunity to escape on the way. And besides, there's safety in numbers…"

"I don't know…" Calhoun started, but Rosenberg told him to shut up.

After some short persuasion, Rosenberg convinced Calhoun to join up, at which point he shook hands with Freeman.

"Great!" Freeman called. "Now that the matter is settled, we just have to figure out how to exit to the surface… From there we'll figure out how to reach the Lambda complex… and maybe, just MAYBE, we could actually make it. All four of us, in our separate objectives…"

The men nodded.

They were determined to not let the monsters and their own hypocritical government win in this situation. They were taking a stand, and felt satisfaction upon knowing it.

Only Doom wasn't sure what would become of him. But he prepared for the worse and hoped for the best. This man fought a war of survival, back on conquered Earth, against ridiculous odds, and came up on top. There's no way that he could be beaten, not now, when finally, after an infinite number of years he had allies by his side.

"Let's go" Doom said to everybody's surprise.

They all turned and started striding in a random direction, hoping it'll lead them to a point from which they could make it to the surface.

As the sound of their footsteps faded, a lone dark figure stepped out of the shadows nearby.

The administrator smiled.

'So far so good!', he thought.

Then he turned and walked away, in a direction different from the one taken by Freeman, Doom, Calhoun and Rosenberg. After all, he had other important matters to attend to…

Author's Notes: Chapter 7 ends! Finally, no cliffhanger this time! I hope you liked it. If you didn't, don't be afraid to tell me, just please tell me what's exactly wrong with it (instead of cursing and pointing out that it's 'stupid-stupid-stupid'), and try to be nice. After all, you don't see ME using rude words toward my readers, now do you?


	8. VIII

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Tadadada! A **truly quick** update this time!! Surprised you, didn't I? Well, this chapter is. rather LONG. Unfortunately, this is one of the cases where quality gets lowered in favour of quantity. My writing was not too careful, and even sloppy, this time around. I'm afraid my grammar was especially affected. And I really don't have the patience to correct everything this time. Sorry people, please accept my apology for this.

Thanks again to my reviewers. I note everything you guys write to me, just FYI. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'm not very well educated in literature. After all, writing is just one of my hobbies. That's why I don't know what "onomeatopia" means. (and Microsoft Word spellchecker apparently doesn't know either.) my guess is that it is some form of writing in literature, like metaphors and anaphors and stuff. I'll try to seek this out in a encyclopedia, promise.

As usual, I sincerely hope you'd enjoy this chapter! (after all, what other purpose do stories have anyway, right?)

***********

CHAPTER 8

***********

Although the olives tasted somewhat sour, the cheese was excellent.

Shepard took another bite from his sandwich. Delicious!

Numerous Apache, Cobra and Osprey helicopters could be seen in the distance, flying this way and that, kicking up sand from the ground. Shepard's squad was sitting on rocks in the field, all eating their rations.

Shepard looked up, his eyes meeting the perfectly blue skies. It was so hard to believe that underneath this beautiful sheet of glowing blue, such horrible events were taking place. A lot of good men were already dead, either by the aliens or by Freeman's hands.

Well, little could be done about the aliens, as their mysterious teleportation techniques gave them nearly complete control of the battlefield.

Freeman, on the other hand.

"Sir! Requesting your attention, sir!" a private interrupted his thoughts.

Shepard nodded his head.

"Freeman was sighted in the old office complex, level four. Patrol squad number 14 reports he was accompanied by 3 other men, one of which was a security guard, another wore scientist's robes, and they couldn't identify the fourth" the private stopped to take a deep breath before going on. "Squad 14 reports that they got away. No casualties to either side, although some property was destroyed."

Shepard waved his hand. In Black Mesa, where danger lurked behind every corner and air duct, the destruction of some ultra-expensive government toys was not an issue.

Shepard believed that the taxpayer's money, although it shouldn't be wasted on its own, wasn't as important as the lives of American soldiers and citizens; at least those who weren't responsible for all this mess - unlike Freeman and his fellow scientists.

"Level four, you said?" Shepard finally responded. "At ease, private. SQUAD!! ATTENTION!"

The soldiers leaped to their feet, unfinished food rations falling to the floor.

"Freeman was sighted by a friendly patrol in one of the old office complexes. These former offices are located underground and were abandoned years ago in favor of more modern, and well defended facilities." Shepard eyed his squad. Each and every one of them was a veteran, even though most were demoted to privates at the administrator's demand. Shepard often wondered how could this guy with no name have so much influence, both in the military and civilian authorities. But it wasn't his job to question his superior's decisions. "What do you think of Freeman, soldiers?"

"Freeman must DIE!!!" came the unanimous response.

"If you see Freeman, what will you do?"

"SHOOT!!!"

"If he shoots back, what do you do?"

"SHOOT!!!"

"If he takes cover, what do you do?"

"GRENADES!!!"

"Do we use lethal methods?"

"YES!!!"

"Do we have mercy?"

"NO!!!"

"Good! Remember all your friends and buddies who died by this man's bullets. He is a traitor of our great nation America, and we cannot allow him to leave, and to take more innocent lives of good troops!" Shepard paused. This wasn't the first time he went through this long tirade with his squad, and it won't be the last.

With the casualty level in Black Mesa, moral tended to break apart in such speed that without constant encouragement, soldiers might've deserted and escaped.

And that was something the military couldn't afford to happen.

"Let's go hunt some lab-rat filth, soldiers!"

"Aye SIR!!!"

As he and his squad started to walk on their way to the destination, Shepard smiled. This squad was indeed loyal and well trained. No rookies here.

He was going to give Freeman the fight of his life.

---

"Now what!?", asked Rosenberg.

The huge steel blast door looked very, very massive. Unfortunately, it was blocking the party's way. A way that, judging by the inclination of this corridor upward, led to the surface.

"Maybe we should try explosives?" suggested Doom.

"Well, I've got a few satchels here." said Freeman, indicating an inner pocket in his HEV suit, "but not nearly enough to topple this thing."

"Shouldn't there be some activation switch or something?" asked Calhoun. "There must be a way to open the doors from the inside!"

"Of course, Barney." Said Rosenberg. "We're looking for a small panel, approximately. here!" Rosenberg opened a small plastic section of the wall, revealing a panel in the wall. It contained several light indicators, all of which weren't currently glowing, as well as a keypad with numbers.

"Crap." Doom cursed. "It needs an authorization code. and there's an eye scanner here too." Doom was as pessimistic as ever.

"Well, I'm working in Black Mesa for years now." Rosenberg said, a proud gleam in his eyes. "Many years ago, I was one of the supporters of this entire operation! I'm familiar with many places in the facility, although only now do I recognize our position. so many years have passed since I've last been in this place." He shook his head slowly, as if remembering. "This is surface exit 5-Alpha-13, or 14 perhaps." Rosenberg straightened his glasses on his small nose, then lifted his finger in triumph. "The code is 749384!" 

He was now smiling.

"The scanner will recognize my eye pattern, and let us pass. My clearance is level 11, there shouldn't be much problem."

"Ah, but there is one." Freeman chimed in. "This panel is dead!"

"Wh-what? Let me see!" Rosenberg pushed Freeman out of the way, and tried typing the code. The light indicators, which were supposed to be glowing with green, remained dark. "I can't believe it!!" 

Rosenberg looked as if he was about to cry.

He tried the eye scanner, but it was also quiet.

"The marines. they've probably sabotaged it to prevent escape." Doom concluded.

"Well, I guess we're screwed after all." Calhoun sighed. "Let's turn around."

Will they ever be able to get out of here?

"Wait! Wait a minute!!" It was Rosenberg. He was shaking excitedly. "I remember there's an override station nearby! Come with me!!"

He started to run down some side corridor, the others trying to keep up behind him.

"Rosenberg! Be careful, dammit!!" Calhoun shouted.

If some slave decided to teleport in front of the defenseless Rosenberg at this moment, it'll be all over for him.

Rosenberg did not listen.

After a minute, Rosenberg stopped, all panting and sweating.

"Well, I'm certainly not in shape today." he managed to say when the others stopped next to him.

"I can see that", said Doom. For him, this run was barely uncomfortable. He almost didn't feel tiredness.

After another minute of rest, Rosenberg pointed to an unremarkable hatch in the floor.

"It's there! I'm sure of it!"

The hatch was flat and round. It somewhat reminded Doom a sewer entrance in a city.

"Where will this hatch lead us?" asked Freeman. He wasn't going to put his and his allies lives to unnecessary risk.

"Well, it's not that I've been there before," said Rosenberg with diffidence in his voice, "I've only seen the blueprints for this section of Black Mesa, and it was quite a long time ago. but I _think_ there's a short corridor that ends with a control cabin." He looked Freeman in the eye "This station was built here for cases just like this, where the mechanism of the door or the panel malfunctioned, and quick access was needed. I don't think this chamber contains anything but the override controls."

"I don't like this!" grunted Doom. "If the military goons sabotaged the blast doors, they could've known 'bout this place here too. It may be an ambush or a trap."

"You're right." Freeman said, closing his mouth to a thin line. "That's why you should stay here with Calhoun, while I get down with Alex to watch over him while he works over the controls. You would be able to warn or assist us in case the marines drop by for a visit."

"Sounds good to me!" Calhoun interjected. "Good luck you two!"

Doom simply nodded, agreeing to Freeman's plan.

Freeman approached the hatch and tried to remove it, but it was quite heavy. With Doom's help though, it was successfully removed, revealing a ladder which went about four meters down into the well-like pass.

Freeman climbed down first, followed by Rosenberg.

It was dark, but Freeman used the flashlight built into his HEV suit to light the way. They started walking through the corridor, which made a sharp turn to the right after 10 meters, and another turn, this time left, after 15 more meters.

There, the corridor opened to a chamber that Freeman estimated to be approximately 15 on 15 meters large. Small red lights were glowing faintly in the walls and ceiling, brightly enough to allow Freeman to turn off the flashlight.

Upon first glance around the room, the two scientists immediately noticed two things.

One was the large operating console that stood on the far side of the room, 

The other thing was half-a-dozen sleek automatic sentry-turrets that were spread all over the room. A dimly glowing maze of crimson laser beams could be seen in the masses of dust swirling around the room, waiting to be triggered by a passing shadow.

"Damn. I guess the soldiers have already been here." Freeman whispered the obvious.

The lasers were just everywhere. Freeman watched these sharp red lines, and had the fleeting impression that a whole separate generator was needed to power such a large quantity of coherent beams.

And each and every one of them was linked to those 6 turrets.

For now, the turrets were dormant, but a slight touch of one of the lasers will be enough to awaken the deadly machines. They will rip apart everyone in sight, until their motion scanners tell them their target is dead or neutralized (in most cases the former), after which they'd fall asleep again, waiting for the next trespasser to wake them up. The experimental technology for these sentry turrets was a recent one, and was not yet revealed to the public. In fact, these merciless sentries were developed and tested right there, in the Black Mesa facility, before entering service in limited quantities. The availability of these useful tools to the US military branches was not going to be limited for long though, as other factories besides Black Mesa were starting to produce the high-tech components needed for their construction.

"What are we going to do!?" Rosenberg was on the verge of panicking. His hands were trembling. He knew there could be no escape when the turrets are triggered - everything that breathes will be shredded into tiny chunks within seconds.

"We have to escape Black Mesa, to get out to the surface. We just do. Do you remember any alternative exits apart from the blast door nearby?"

Rosenberg shook his head, eyes still full of horror.

"That's not good. That means we'd have to pass through that maze without triggering any laser, you'll do your stuff with the controls and then we'll turn back. again, avoiding any touch with the lasers."

Rosenberg looked at the laser traps, randomly crossing each other, and gulped. The free spaces where a man's foot could step were small and far between. Even more lasers crossed the air at 1 meter height from the floor, making any attempt to cross to the other side ultra-hazardous at best.

"I. I think I'll wait here." Rosenberg managed to say.

Freeman cast a harsh look upon him.

"No, really. I could guide you from right here, so you could activate the override sequence yourself! I'm so clumsy that I'm likely to trigger the alarm and doom both of us anyway!"

Freeman nodded tiredly. After all, if Freeman triggered the alarm, at least Rosenberg, standing so close to the exit, will have a chance to escape.

And so, Freeman started to slowly make his way across the deadly field made of light. He would twist his body to pass below, above and between crossing beams, showing an impressive degree of flexibility and balance.

Freeman was progressing very slowly. After 15 minutes, he made ¾ of the way to area around the console, which was clear of laser beams. His muscles, though, were aching horribly. He was sweating uncontrollably. Merely several meters behind his back, Rosenberg watched Freeman move, mesmerized, with held breath.

When he was very close to the console, Freeman felt he could drop from exhaustion any second, but kept going, gis attention never wavering from the beams.

And he made it.

Collapsing before the console, he took a full minute restoring his muscles to proper functioning.

Then he stood up, approached the console, and asked Rosenberg for instruction.

Rosenberg complied, and Freeman carried out each separate procedure carefully, just as instructed.

When he finished, green indicators flooded the panel. He did it!

He turned around and prepared himself mentally for the long trip to the other side of the room, when.

**BWHIIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ**

In an almost blinding green flash, an alien slave teleported into the room. He appeared just below the ceiling at nearly 4 meters above the floor, and landed, of course, right in the middle of the crimson maze.

*WHAAAAAAAAAM*

*PEEP!**PEEP!**PEEP!*

The turrets unfolded their 6-barreled machine-gun emplacements simultaneously, making beeping noises to warn all potential friendlies nearby.

"RUN, ALEX!!!!!!!!!" Freeman bellowed uncontrollably.

He was afraid that Rosenberg would freeze from fear, but the little man complied, running clumsily towards the exit.

On the way Rosenberg tripped. Fortunately, the turrets were still busy turning the slave into a strainer, so he used the 2 additional seconds he had to get up and keep running. He managed to clear the room in time.

Freeman did not see Rosenberg's miserable attempts at survival, as he himself was already diving for the only available cover - the console.

By this time the slave was mutilated enough so that it could no longer be discerned from, for example, a bullsquid. The turrets sensed movement at the console's direction, and turned to neutralize the intruder.

Freeman managed to squeeze his body, along with the large HEV suit, between the console and the wall, just before the first volley of bullets danced upon the metallic floor where his head was a second ago. He tried to protect his head with his hands, and prayed that no bullet will ricochet in his direction. None did.

Fortunately for Freeman, the console was just wide enough to cover his entire body, though he wasn't sure if the tips of his boots were visible to the turrets on the other side. That was the reason that after the initial burst of bullets, the turrets stopped firing. After all, they could not detect Freeman, neither by the motion scanner nor by infrared imaging.

Freeman lied very still, waiting for the turrets to become dormant again, for the constant beeping to stop, for the machine guns on the turret's tips to fold in. He wasn't sure how long will the turret's alert status be active. It all depended on their programming.

-

*BANG**BANG*

Still closed.

What the heck happened?

Rosenberg was breathing heavily, fearing the worst. Freeman was probably dead, not 20 meters away from his location, and he was left all alone. Not only that, but the entrance hatch through which he and Freeman got down here was tightly shut. Rosenberg tried to open it, and when he realized he couldn't, he started to bang on it, hoping his friends up there would here him and get the hatch open to help him.

No such luck.

For the first time since the beginning of this horrible day, Rosenberg started to cry. He promised himself before that he would fight the horrors of the Resonance Cascade like a man, but now he could no longer hold on his tears.

What is he going to do??

He quit attempting to force the hatch open, and got down from the ladder.

Everything is silent. No gunfire could be heard. The turrets weren't firing on anybody.

Either Freeman managed to somehow escape, or, more probably, he was already dead.

Rosenberg wipes his tears and braces himself together. He would just have to survive alone.

He tries to call forth the memory of the area's blueprints, to find an exit from this place. Wait a minute. wasn't there something about air ducts placed somewhere around here?

Yes! Now he could remember. The management had questioned the need of placing air ducts in such a rarely-visited, almost maintenance-oriented chamber. Rosenberg couldn't remember the engineer's and architect's answers, but he was pretty sure the air ducts _were_ somewhere around.

He looked around in the darkness, giving his eyes even more time to get used to the darkness.

THERE!

He saw a small dark rectangle shape near the floor. He checked it out, and discovered that it was indeed either an air vent, or a maintenance tunnel. It was locked, but Rosenberg got out his small pistol. Although his puny self-defense weapon was useless against the kind of monsters roaming Black Mesa, it was still a gun, and it was still perfectly capable of piercing an iron lock with a single shot.

BOOM!

The job is done.

Rosenberg squeezed himself through the tight opening, and disappeared into the choking darkness.

-

When Freeman and Rosenberg disappeared into the hatch in the floor, Doom and Calhoun did not expect them to take all that long. After all, why should they take more than 5 minutes max to turn a few switches, and press a few buttons?

But after 10 minutes have passed, they started to worry.

Their concern tripled when they started to hear marines, somewhere not too far. They closed the hatch so it will not look suspicious, hidden themselves in cover and waited, weapons raised.

When they started to hear multiple gun fire and explosions, they both cast puzzled look at each other. All that mess sounded like a serious battle, not a simple encounter with one or two slaves. What the hell was going on there!?

"Calhoun!" Doom's deep voice called.

"What?"

"We have to warn Freeman and Rosenberg, in case the soldiers will get closer."

"You're right. I'll go"

Calhoun didn't bother to ponder about the perfect consensus created between him and Doom. He started to approach the now closed hatch, with Doom right behind him to help lift it, when the sounds of gunfire started to weaken, and were gone in seconds.

"What the heck." Calhoun started to speak, but never finished the sentence.

The ground shook, and from behind the corner of the large corridor that led to the blast doors (and the direction of the gunfire they've heard), a huge bluish-green shape appeared, making strides about 3 meters wide each.

The single red eye focused on the horrified humans, their useless weapons pointed at the towering giant.

"Not you!" Doom cursed under his breath.

Calhoun just stood, mesmerized at the inhuman nightmare-in-flesh.

The wicked white teeth of the creature made a clamping sound. He was going to have them for supper.

Finally, after the longest 3 seconds in both men's lives, the giant acted.

Its large trunk-sized right foot rose high into the air.

THUMP!!!

A bright red charge, emitting a high-pitched sound, shot from the enormous foot. It was aimed at Doom. He and Calhoun dodged to different sides, and the red charge collided with the wall, blowing a hole the size of a small car.

Freeman and Calhoun did not wait for the dust to clear; they immediately dove into the hole in the wall, the edges of which were glowing red from the heat.

Although they were reluctant to leave Freeman and Rosenberg behind, without even telling them what happened, they were totally preoccupied with escaping the lumbering death that punched through the wall, which broke apart easily.

They ran on, blindly, the gargantuan nature's atrocity hot on their tracks.

"Catch this, sucker!!"

It was Calhoun.

Doom didn't know the brave security guard had any other weapons than the Glock he demonstrated earlier, but now he witnessed how Calhoun threw a grenade behind his back, spitting and shouting curses toward the monster.

The grenade went off with a sound that was muffled by the creature's foot. The hot fires of the explosion licked its side, but it didn't seem to be hurt, as it kept closing in on them at the same pace.

"Ha! Take THAT, bitch!!!"

Another grenade went off, this time closer to the creature.

The effect of the explosion on the giant, or lack thereof, seemed to be the same as before.

More curses and more grenades went flying into the air. The explosions, powerful enough to turn a human being into a burnt-out-smoking-rag-holed-with-shrapnel, was doing almost nil to the cyclops. At best, it was merely delaying it a bit.

The two men kept running. They were so far from the area of the hatch now, that they couldn't recognize the place they were running through at all.

The living green mountain with razor-sharp teeth kept pursuing, causing destruction and havoc on its way.

-

Rosenberg crawled forward, on and on. He twisted his body through the tight labyrinth of tunnels, in a complete blanket of darkness. He couldn't see a thing; there was no light for his eyes to adapt to.

His pulse, already racing, quickened its pace even more. His heart was pounding so powerfully, that it almost seemed to shake the entire vent.

Rosenberg didn't know that he was claustrophobic, but he had found out about it the hard way.

Crawling, on and on, without an end. He imagined the cool walls of the vent to be alive, they kept constricting more and more until he could hear his bones crack in his imagination.

The complete darkness and tightness of space kept driving him mad. He felt as if he was swallowed alive. And the worst part was, that he was lost. He couldn't turn back even if he wanted to, because he did not even remotely have the needed space to turn his body to the opposite direction.

Lost. Forever. The thought was unbearable. He started to moan with fear, when suddenly, his eyes, which in this darkness were very sensitive to light, picked up a slightly brighter turn in a yet another crossing.

His heart pounded loudly, this time with hope, as he happily crawled toward the source of light.

Yes! It's getting brighter!

He was confident that after the next curve of the tight passage, he would be able to discern the exit from this network of vents.

But he wasn't destined to find out.

*SCREECH!*

Rosenberg's heart missed a beat, as he felt something cold, soft and _moist_ clamp on the top of his head.

He started to draw a breath for a last scream of horror, when a sharp pain went all the way through his head to the spine.

Darkness, way darker than his surroundings, enveloped the screaming mind of Alexander Rosenberg.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

[a tired sigh] well, this chapter was freakin' long, wasn't it? I've written it pretty quickly and without too much attention to details. THAT's the reason for the low quality of my grammar and writing. I apologize for it again. I think I know how it feels to read something that is written in a strange way that does not conform to the rules of English, but there's little that I can do about it.

As usual, reviews will be appreciated.


	9. IX

Writer's Note: Well, here's chapter 9!

To Blizrun: Errr, well… you're right about the tenses… whoops [embarrassed]! Actually it's because I've read a book that uses the present tense often before writing chap 8. I've noticed that I switched the tense accidentally, and corrected it. Or so I thought… apparently I've missed a spot… Oh, and it's very flattering to hear my humble story is on your favorites list! (well, the word "flattering" sounds like I'm a wuss or something, but I couldn't find a better word…)

To Ivan Alias: Ah, now I know what you mean! OK, I'll keep that in mind. You're right, after all, if you wanted to read a goddamn comics book, you would've bough one. In literature, events should be properly described. I'll limit my use of onomatopoeia (that's how it's spelled, BTW) in the future.

To Jetzer: Wow, thanks! When I started to write this, I never imagined I'd actually have FANS ^_^. That's really I nice boost to my ego (:^P) and I appreciate it.

To Hao: Thanks for reviewing. First of all, don't worry, there IS a plot underneath all the action. Everything in my story has a reason. Yes, there IS a reason for that gate which the demons protected, there IS a reason why the Xen creatures started to appear in Doom's world. There IS a reason why the G-Man sent Shepard to kill Freeman. There's a reason for everything. Don't worry, eventually, after a few more non-stop dumb action chapters (which are still quite fun, aren't they? ^_^) there would be more developments as well. As to your second remark, about the blood in HL – errr yeah, it is yellow… sort of… but it has a slightly green hue, and green is the traditional color for alien blood, so… consider it "very bright green" if you want :p.

Thanks to other reviewers as well.

Well, enjoy everyone! (Hopefully!)

***********

CHAPTER 9

***********

*BEEP!**BEEP!* -------------(errr, sorry, last use of onomatopoeia!)

The turrets kept beeping loudly, warning friends and foes alike of their deadly presence. For the last 5 minutes, Freeman was lying uncomfortably behind the small console, waiting for them to turn off. If they weren't programmed to turn off sometimes after their activation, it could be several hours before their battery runs out of power.

"Ah, screw it" Freeman said aloud.

He fell in the inner pockets of his suit a bit, until he could feel the coolness of the grenade's metal, even through the thick black rubber gloves.

He threw one, then two, then three grenades from behind the console, careful not to expose his hand to the turret's line-of-sight in the process.

The turrets, sensing the movement of the grenades, tried to shoot them down, unsuccessfully. Their targets were simply too small, and moved too quickly for them.

The grenades landed with a loud 'clank'. It took several seconds for them to go off. The explosion, in such a confined space, was deafening.

Freeman waited for the loud ringing in his ears to subside, and for his sight to return into focus. Then, he poked his armored boot out, and waved it. Nothing happened.

Apparently, the turrets were down.

After several more attempts to activate the non-existent turrets from behind his cover, just in case one of them was left intact, Freeman got out from his cover.

Observing the aftermath of his grenades, Freeman whistled to himself in concern. The explosions caused parts of the ceiling to collapse, exposing the wiring in the walls. It was a miracle that the ceiling didn't collapse on Freeman at all.

Now there was a lot more dust in the room, which made the trip-lasers look a lot brighter. These lasers, though, weren't connected to anything now. All that was left from the turrets was some metallic components, scattered across the room, even in unexpected places.

That was very good, because Freeman really did not feel like maneuvering around the lasers a second time.

While walking confidently through the maze, he must've triggered at least two dozens of separate silent alarms. Of course, with the turrets destroyed, Freeman couldn't care less.

Several seconds later, Freeman reached the ladder that led to the hatch.

Oddly, it was closed.

He knocked on it, and upon receiving no answer, tried to lift it.

His muscles bulged, as the heavy lid slowly moved. Freeman grinded his teeth, and kept pushing. He was thankful that he kept himself in shape before the accident in Black Mesa occurred. Has it been another, random scientist, chances were that they couldn't budge the hatch even an inch. Most scientists, too busy to maintain a healthy style of life, didn't bother with their bodies at all, preferring to develop their mind.

'Heh, that's sure more helpful than muscles in Black Mesa…' Freeman thought, quietly laughing to himself.

Finally, the opening got wide enough for Freeman to barely squeeze through.

Standing up in the corridor, Freeman dusted himself up, but froze in shock as he raised his head. His gaze met a huge hole in the wall, large enough for a bus to drive through.

Realizing that something serious happened, Freeman stepped through the hole, to the other side.

Destruction. Lots of destruction.

Swirling clouds of black smoke and craters marked the spots where small explosions, like those of grenades, apparently went off. Additionally, Freeman noticed enormous footprints, engraved in the cement. The thing that went through here must have been very heavy…

Freeman, suspecting what Doom and Calhoun might've encountered, started to follow the trail of destruction.

Hopefully, it will lead him to his friends.

-

The bullet, accelerating away from Calhoun's Glock, smashed straight into the Slave's red eye. The slave, not having any time to react, dropped down like a fly. Doom and Calhoun ran past its silent body, still trying to put some distance between them and the alien hulk behind them.

"Crap, will this thing ever get tired?" whispered Calhoun breathlessly, while ducking to avoid a blob of potent acid hurled onto him by a Bullsquid.

"I don't know" Doom replied, gunning down the offending Bullsquid. "I faced one of these things back in my world" he paused briefly to shoot at the pack of Houndeyes who tried to chase them, "It chased me through half the city."

Calhoun gulped, then added: "Heh, if this sucker wants to race, let him bring it!, I run well enough to compete the Marathon, I'm telling ya!"

"Whatever…" Doom shook his head, while wasting yet another alien slave that appeared out of nowhere, "It also has a very good tracking ability…" he added.

"As I can see!" Calhoun rolled his eyes, listening to the huge footsteps that started to gain on them again.

Another Slave appeared in a green flash, not bothering to wait and immediately charging up its electricity.

"WILL THESE THINGS STOP APPEARING FROM NOWHERE ALREADY!!!!" Calhoun shouted in frustration while Doom killed the slave before it had the time to unleash its high-voltage assault. "Can't they see we're a _little_ busy here, trying to not get shredded to pieces by a madman's parody on the Incredible Hulk!!?"

Doom did not answer.

"I think these dim-witted aliens don't have any sense of good timing" Calhoun added, watching as Doom shot down a bullsquid that suddenly popped right infront of his shotgun. "See? That was so f***ing stupid! Even the Demons are smarter than this!"

Despite still not being visible, the huge beast sounded a lot closer now. The two could hear it moan and roar, as it sensed its tired prey slowing down from exhaustion.

"Hmmm… Time to pick up the pace, Barney." Doom said. "Are you up to it?"

"Me? Up to it!? While of course I am! Just try to keep up, please!" Calhoun called, while pretending to be insulted.

'Only half an hour ago, this guard was nothing more but a scared man wanting to get to safety, and now he acts like the whole situation is a joke.' thought Doom. 'Sometimes, it's unbelievable how some difficulties can bring out the best and hidden qualities of a man…' Doom weighed this thought in his mind before breaking in a sudden sprint.

Calhoun then followed him, starting to feel a sharp pain slowly forming somewhere in his lower ribs.

When they rounded the next corner though, they found themselves in a large room, full of crates and barrels.

Unfortunately, it was also crammed with marines, who noticed Doom and Calhoun's quick entrance almost instantly.

The marines did not wait too long, opening fire on the fleeing men.

Doom and Calhoun cast a worried look at each other, frowning. For a brief moment, time seemed to slow down, the bullets whistling past and around their heads slowly. They saw each others faces clearly, determined not to fall down, not to submit to death.

Both quickly nodded, and jumped aside to different directions, seeking cover behind the numerous crates and barrels.

"Let's go! Blast 'em!" Calhoun could hear the marines shout.

Hoping Doom will be OK, Calhoun started to advance between the crates.

A marine popped from behind a nearby barrel, and was awarded with a shot into his eye.

He kept going, climbing on crates and taking down surprised marines from unexpected directions. From the gunfire sounds he could hear, Doom was doing the same.

This game of cat and mouse in the warehouse was dangerous, but so far Calhoun fared well.

Subconsciously, he still listened to the footsteps of the green monster, trying to determine when will it enter the warehouse room as well.

Eventually, Calhoun and Doom met each other successfully on the other side of the room.

There were some marines still left in the room when the gargantua stepped into the room. Forgetting about the two who slaughtered a large portion of their squad, they tried to take the giant down, failing miserably of course.

Doom and Calhoun could hear their screams of pain as they were fried alive by the burning jets from the gargantua's large 'hands'.

"Quick, over here!" Doom pointed to what seemed to be a small elevator. It was the only way out of the room, not counting the way they came from.

They climbed the stairs to a higher platform, from which they could access the elevator.

Unfortunately, the elevator cabin was not here. It was somewhere up the shaft, waiting to be summoned down to the warehouse.

Calhoun pushed the button of the elevator. Through the bars of the elevator door he could see the open cabin slowly descending.

"Come on, come on!" he shouted frustrated, hitting the button repeatedly. The elevator still was going down rather slowly. "Crap, Doom, this thing won't go faster! What do we do? Doom?"

He looked at doom after hearing no reply. Doom was frozen, his gaze focused on the other side of the room.

Calhoun traced his gaze, and froze in shock. For a moment, he was afraid he would wet his pants.

On this platform, they were higher than most of the crates, and had a relatively clear view of the entire view.

Right there, the gargantuan stood. His form was very still, not moving an inch. His green skin or hide was covered with large crimson spots of fresh blood. Blood was dripping from its huge mouth, when Calhoun could barely discern what looked like a severed hand stuck between its teeth.

The creature's eye was glowing very brightly, and aimed right at them!

Then, emitting a deafening roar, the creature started moving in their direction!

Hearing a silent clank Calhoun turned around, and saw the elevator was finally down.

"Come on!" he shouted at Doom, grabbing his hand.

At that moment Doom snapped out of his brief shock, and jumped into the elevator along with Calhoun.

There was only a single button in the cabin, and Doom punched it immediately.

The doors of the elevator closed.

Calhoun and Doom could still see the Gargantuan very clearly through the bars of the door. It was easily tall enough to reach the platform they were on, and it was plowing right through the crates, scattering them like they were weightless.

The elevator started moving slowly upwards.

"Come on, come on!" Calhoun folded his hands and started praying, despite not being Catholic. Doom just watched silently as the Gargantuan was rapidly closing the distance between him and the slowly rising elevator.

Finally, the gargantuan beast reached the platform. It slammed its huge hand into the shaft opening, crushing the bottom end of the shaft below them like it was made of paper. It then started to aim his cannon-like hands at the rising cabin, but then he disappeared out of view as the cabin reached past the ceiling and onto the next floor.

"We're saved…", Calhoun breathed in relief, as the hot jets melted a section of the shaft right below them.

They felt the cabin shake as the gargantuan monster raged in fury, destroying anything it could find in the warehouse.

Then, the shakes subsided. The frustrated gargantuan apparently left.

After an eternity, the elevator finally reached its destination several floors higher.

The moment the doors opened, the two filed out and fell to the floor, exhausted.

-

Freeman was following the destruction, fearing the worst, when he started to feel the earth trembling. Several moments later, he started to hear huge, heavy steps coming his way.

Looking around he spotted some nice cover, in form of a large section of the wall that was torn down by a grenade explosion.

Waiting several moments behind his improvised cover, he saw, from his position, what he expected to see – large green feet passing by, going back the way he came from. A gargantua, of course, just like he expected.

When the gargantua disappeared, and the tremor died down, Freeman got from behind his cover and resumed following the destruction, in hopes of finding Doom, Calhoun and Rosenberg.

Finally, he reached a warehouse. A former warehouse, to be precise.

Remains of barrels, crates and human bodies (marines, judging by the torn uniforms) were spread around everywhere – the aftermath of a Gargantua assault.

'This must be the location where the three ended up in', Freeman thought.

He searched for any indication of a familiar body, but the bloody remains of some were impossible to recognize. Others were killed by bullets though, bullets that could only come from his friends weapons.

Perhaps they're still alive…

Suppressing the growing hope inside him, Freeman looked around, and quickly spotted the elevator on a platform on the other side of the room.

He climbed to the platform, called the elevator, watched it go down, entered and started going up.

He did not know what to expect, but either his friends were dead, or alive.

If it were the latter, he would certainly find them somewhere there, at the elevator's destination…

-

A huge silvery Minigun was pointing down an elevator's shaft. Behind it, Doom's concentrated face could be seen, frozen and without emotion. His hands held the bulky weapon steadily, the huge barrels of the metallic monster of a weapon pointing directly at the rising cabin of the elevator.

To his side a little further away, Calhoun waited with his pistol as a backup.

Half a minute ago they were resting, backs leaned on a wall, when the elevator through which they came here started to go down.

That alerted both of them.

They stood up immediately and wondered what should they do, when the elevator started going up again. Something was coming up, that much was clear.

So Doom decided not to take any chances. After all, he couldn't tell who (or what) was in there, because the contents of the open cabin weren't visible from above it.

Now that he didn't have to be mobile, Doom decided it will be wise to use the most dangerous weapon in his limited arsenal. So there he stood, waiting with a deadly greeting in his muscular hands for the elevator to arrive.

And it did. But Doom did not fire.

He and Calhoun were shocked and happy at the same time, for Freeman was the one they saw stepping out of the elevator.

"So, you have decided to rejoin us" Doom said, lowering the bulky Minigun.

"Hey, Gordon, it's you!" Calhoun said, laughing. He then remembered to holster his pistol, and approached Freeman to pat him on the back, before remembering something else. "Say, Gordon… Is Alex waiting down there or something?"

"What?" Freeman frowned. "I thought he was with you?"

"The scientist never emerged from the hatch. Not that we saw, I mean." Doom added. "You see, we had to run from a large beast at some point…".

"I know I know, I saw the destruction and the Gargantua!" Freeman interrupted.

"So where the hell could he go!?" Calhoun cried out, alarmed.

The three exchanged short versions of their stories, before deciding what to do next.

Calhoun refused to keep going. He wanted to go down and search for Rosenberg, then use the blast door they've opened to get to the surface.

Doom voted to keep going and explore their immediate surroundings. After all, that green creature was still somewhere down there. To get down and try to reach the blast door wouldn't be very practical, as they have just barely escaped death by the hands of the creature. Freeman, who had some experience with this kind of creature before, explained that it is possible to hide from it if it hasn't spotted you. On the other hand, once it did, it would be locked onto your infrared signature, and no place would be safe safe, except for ones that are hard-to-reach for a being of that size, of course.

"It is still a too great of a risk" Doom persisted.

Freeman opted to explore this level too, but for different reasons than Doom. Freeman was confident that because they ascended several floors higher via the elevator, they must be very close to the surface now, and it would be wiser to seek an exit from here instead of going back, to a _lower_ level of the compound.

Despite Calhoun's demand to go back and find Rosenberg, the other two weren't so inclined to follow their buddy's pleads.

"You must quit deluding yourself!" Freeman said at one point, putting his hand on Calhoun's shoulder. "He was alone for what? An hour? If his only weapon is that toy pistol of his… be realistic. We can't help him by getting killed ourselves."

"But… you don't know that! He could still be alive! Maybe if…" Calhoun said, looking like he would break in a moment.

"No 'ifs', no 'buts'. Our lives are just as important as his." Freeman let go of Calhoun's shoulder. "If you want to go alone, I won't stop you" he gestured towards the waiting elevator. "But for best chances of survival, we should stick together. There are enough hazards…" he flinched at the sound of very loud gunfire, very close by.

"Don't worry, I took care of him!" Doom said.

Freeman turned his head to see Doom lowering the smoking barrel of his Minigun. He observed his work – a dead, completely torn apart, alien slave.

"Like I was saying" Freeman went on "There are enough dangers here as it is. We can't split up now, even to save another friend. We are at war, and that's the way war is. Sometimes people go, and we can't bring them back…"

"Actually" Doom interrupted, "Normal war is very different from all this…"

Freeman's murderous gaze forced him to cut off his sentence, as Freeman continued his attempts to cheer up the dazed security guard, whose earlier bravado seemed to fade and leave behind it a very vulnerable person.

'This man has merely lost an acquaintance, and he is already torn from within…' thought Doom, while Freeman kept talking to Calhoun, who started to shake. 'I, on the other hand, lost the entire human race. Many of my closest friends and family, or at least their possessed bodies, were killed by my own hands.' He cast a gaze at the blue and orange suited men. 'Would I even care if I'd lose these two allies?'.

To his surprise, he realized he would. He would mourn the loss of Calhoun and Freeman, if that will ever occur. He even mourns the apparent loss of Rosenberg at this very moment, just like he mourned every single friend he had lost during the Invasion and its aftermath. But he mourns him his own way, deep within, not showing anything to the hostile world outside. Disclosing emotions might disclose a weakness to the enemy. That's what years of practicing 'survival of the fittest' in a 'jungle' of stone and glass, or more precisely, a _graveyard_ of stone and glass, does to a man.

-

It took Calhoun some more time before he managed to get a hang of himself, before they went on, searching for a new way out.

Calhoun would attempt to leave Black Mesa alone now, while Doom and Freeman would attempt to reach Black Mesa.

And Calhoun would make sure to make some kind of memorial for Rosenberg, when he'd get out.

When they'd get out…

-

Gunfire was erupting from all sides.

Blood, both red and green, was flying like rain, flowing like a river.

Shepard walked through the chaos of Man and Alien fighting, unfazed. He knew his squad could handle the fight well. After all, these monsters are merely animals. At least, some of them appeared to be as dumb as ones.

From time to time Shepard raised his Desert Eagle and popped a precision shot, always scoring a kill.

It wasn't a challenge, Shepard reflected. It is not even a worthy practice for his squad before they'll have to face Freeman.

Freeman… a wonder of a man. Shepard had studied the files regarding Freeman closely, after the administrator handed them to him.

One day Freeman is a peaceful scientist, the other day he is a gun-wielding psycho, the number one threat to the Marines in Black Mesa.

Shepard couldn't figure out how could such a radical change take place in such a short time span, but he wasn't stupid enough to underestimate Freeman.

Perhaps in time, when he faced this man, he would find out his secret…

"Sir, area secured!" his aide called, saluting.

Shepard resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. He could see that very well, for he was standing right in the middle of the aftermath of the battle. He lost several troops, but he wasn't worried. His squad was quite large and numerous. Besides, considering the size of this alien force, he might even consider it a fair trade to lose a few troops in return.

They marched several more minutes silently, and finally reached their destination.

Shepard saw an elevator. Correction, the remains of an elevator cabin. The remains were charred from an explosion, and there was some kind of unrecognizable chunk of charred meat in the middle of it, that might or might not be human.

Actually, judging by the smell of the charred flesh, Shepard was inclined to believe this was in fact an alien…

"So, this is their last reported position…" Shepard said aloud.

He pondered some more, before talking quietly into his portable radio.

He listened to the response, before acknowledging, and turning to face his soldiers.

"Let's go." He said simply. "They're long gone by now. Might get lucky next time."

With these words, Shepard turned to walk down the nearby corridor. His squad followed.


	10. X The Incomplete Chapter

WHERE HAVE THEY COME FROM – THE LOST (AND POSSIBLY LAST) CHAPTER

You heard it. This is the incomplete chapter 10, which was written more than half a year ago. Since, as you could guess, I have (currently) lost interest in writing I am very unlikely to continue this, and releasing the unfinished chapter is the least I can do. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as (you've said you) enjoyed the other chapters. Oh, and please don't hate me .

CHAPTER 10

Doom eyed the strange new alien creature, placing it right in the middle of his pistol's sights. He wasn't sure whether to shoot it or to simply move on, because it didn't look very threatening. But Doom learned not to judge a creature by its looks – and now he was cautious. He waited for Freeman and Calhoun, who were several minutes behind him, to arrive.

Shortly, he heard the steps of his teammates behind him.

"Well, what do we have here?" asked Freeman, looking up at the creature Doom was pointing his gun at. "Why the hell are you aiming at a Barnacle?"

"I don't know what it is, so I opted not to take any chances. Just tell me what it does, would you?"

"Waited for the 'Xen alien experts' to arrive, huh?" Freeman asked, doing a 'quotation mark' motion with his fingers.

Doom rolled his eyes and half-groaned half-growled in response. Sometimes Freeman really knew how to be a pain in the ass.

"OK, don't get mad at me" Freeman said quickly. "This thing is harmless, as long as you don't touch its sticky tongue".

"What, this rope thing?" Doom waved his head in the direction of the tongue.

"Exactly. It'll strangle you, drag you up, and devour you in seconds. Yummy. Now, let's move on, we're almost on the surface now, I can _feel _it".

The two moved out, with Calhoun, still pale from the shock of losing a friend, dragging himself after them.

As they kept going onward, more and more Barnacles could be seen, hanging down from the ceiling until it was littered with the things.

"Hmm", doom pondered. "Their tongues are very tightly grouped together. It won't be easy to pass through…" he suddenly jumped and whirled about as he heard gunshots right behind him.

Freeman was shooting at the Barnacles one by one, causing some of them to drop to the floor, causing others to vomit blood and half-digested human-looking tissue.

"Next time, WARN ME before opening fire!" Doom said through gritted teeth.

An observer could possibly misjudge Doom as being a coward for nervously jumping so suddenly. He would be mistaken, of course. Doom's reflexes were honed to their peak by years of surviving the horrors of LA, and a sudden noise in the dead city usually meant bad news. Therefore, it's not surprising that Doom acted the way it was. His sharp perception and cunning reflexes were the ones to blame.

Now, after most of the Barnacles were dead, the path was clear for the three to go on.

-

Only fifteen minutes have passed before they reached a door, which opened up without the need to resort to violence.

Behind the door was a really large room – a hangar of some kind, even though it was empty of airplanes. Daylight was pouring in from high-placed windows, illuminating the swirling masses of dust, which could be seen in every direction they look at.

"Hell, we're _out_" Calhoun whispered behind him.

The others didn't hear him, as they were busy at cautiously exploring the room.

They knew they've reached the surface, but they were still far from either Lambda section, or the end of Black Mesa. And who knows what other horrors await them at the surface? Are there things here, more horrible than anything they've seen so far?

For several minutes, everything was quiet.

Doom and Freeman took point, looking around the piles of old machinery that was scattered around the place. Calhoun paced slowly behind them in depression, pretending to guard the rear.

But Black Mesa once again proved itself as a place no sane man would ever like to visit. Even at its surface, its dangers kept haunting everyone who was foolish enough to lower his guard.

It all started with the loud explosion of sound, as Doom's shotgun suddenly spitted its deadly fire, making a rather large hole in a nearby pile of airplane replacement parts.

Freeman and Calhoun looked about, surprised.

"What are…" Freeman started to say, but Doom shouted, "Get back!", and started shooting and pumping his shotgun wildly, hitting nothing but harmless walls and machinery.

Freeman and Calhoun tried to see what Doom was shooting at, but saw nothing. They watched, wide-eyed, as Doom suddenly swung his shotgun a lot closer to the position of the two, and opened fire again.

Freeman and Calhoun scurried for cover.

"ARE YOU MAD?" Freeman shouted at Doom, but to no avail. It indeed appeared as though their companion has finally succumbed to the stress and pressure of Black Mesa, and lost his nerve.

'But it can't be…' Freeman thought, as he remembered the heroic stories Doom told him, about living for years in a world of terror in its purest form. 'Of all of us, why Doom?'. For him, Black Mesa should've been like a picnic compared to what he endured before!

There, admittedly, was another possibility. Freeman already knew what happened to people who were careless enough to allow a Headcrab to grab at their scalp. They become _possessed_. Although Doom has clearly never been assaulted by a Headcrab in such a way, Freeman had to seriously consider the possibility that something _else_, some new kind of life form, possessed Doom, forcing him to shoot in the direction of his allies and friends.

He was half-correct.

Doom stopped shooting, and the two carefully got out of their cover, weapons pointing at Doom, though the safeties were still on.

"What?" Doom asked, seeing the weapons pointing at him.

For a moment he was puzzled, but then he realized how he must've looked, shooting frantically around him for no visible reason.

"I see. You need explanation", he said. Without other words, he started walking in their direction at a determined pace, still under the weapon sights of the closest people to friends he had in _years_.

Although Freeman and Calhoun were positively freaked out, their concerns have turned out to be for nothing, when Doom stopped in place about half the way to their position.

Then, he lifted his foot forward, and stomped on the floor, hard.

Calhoun and Freeman's eyes went round when they heard a strange soft thump, as Doom's boot hit something solid _before_ reaching the floor.

Looking closer, they could see the outlines of _something_ lying on the floor. This thing looked insubstantial, like a cloud of the thinnest vapor, or a play of the sunlight on the swirling dust. It was almost impossible to notice, unless you knew what to look for, and when to look for it.

"This thing is called a Spectre", said Doom in a quiet voice, confirming that the _something_ was very well existent, and lying there, under his boot. "It is a Demon. From my world" Doom looked directly into Freeman's eyes very seriously, then shifted his gaze at Calhoun.

The two now realized, that these almost invisible 'Spectres' must've been the ones Doom was shooting at. It was still hard for them to digest that this kind of monster could be real, but to see is to believe. Well, not exactly to _see_, in this case.

"There are two more bodies over there" Doom pointed at a certain direction, were bullet holes could be seen decorating the walls.

"Uh-huh" Freeman said, not believing he could have ever doubted the sanity of this man even for a second. But what were the monsters which Doom kept telling them about doing _here_?

"G-guys?" Calhoun broke the uncomfortable silence. "We should get out of here before more of these things, or worse, come out!"

He made sense, and the two headed for a doorway that appeared to be leading outside. Although they gave up on exploring the rest of the hangar, they were still alert for any noise or indication of alien presence.

But the hangar was empty of monsters. Little did they know, that the reason for this was because the monsters waited for them at the other side of the door.

After Doom shot the lock of the apparently jammed door, and opened it, they were greeted with sunlight, the smell of blood carried by the wind, and several loud growls.

Fireballs and pink Demons rushed out to greet them, and the three had to take action with their guns. Soon, the monsters were dead.

"Imps and Pinkies" Doom muttered, before they had the chance to ask.

It was already obvious to Freeman and Calhoun which world they came from.

Five muscular, monstrous humanoids, with brown fur and white tusks coming out of various spots in their bodies, were lying dead on the earth, making good company for the three monstrous dead pinkies, pink blobs of flesh, yellow teeth and muscular limbs.

"What the hell are these things doing here?" Freeman expressed everyone's thoughts aloud.

Doom simply sighed, and started walking without a word, forcing his two companions to follow.

Although he appeared to be only mildly concerned, in fact his head was exploding with questions waiting to be answered.

How did the creatures got here? What was their purpose in being here? These were the first two questions.

Possible answers, Doom reflected, were that they've used the same gate he did, and that, since they weren't too friendly with the Xen creatures in his own world, it was possible that they were here to kill them.

But then other questions popped up.

How did they build that gate? For what purpose? What other potential surprises could be expected from the Demons? How did they hope to fight the Xen by attacking the occasional monster roaming Black Mesa? Did the US Marines know about them? Who is winning the war (if there is one) between the Demons and Xen? Who started this "war" and why? How many demons could fit through that relatively small gate, and whether there were more of its kind around? How did the Demons hoped to get back to their dimension? Through analogical gates hidden somewhere in Black Mesa?

These were only some of the unanswered questions boiling in Doom's mind. And they were important ones too. They could directly affect his future in this, or his own world.

But he kept these thoughts private, for the time being. No need to concern his friends without good reason. They've endured enough as it is.

-

They were on the right path. He could feel it.

Shepard walked forward silently in the midst of his heavily armed men, pondering about Freeman, the man who made the impossible commonplace, when something went wrong.

Shepard and his men knew there was something coming when small pieces of the ceiling started falling on their heads. One of the largest ones fell on a trooper's helmet, knocking him unconscious. As everyone took cover, they could now feel the ground shaking, low thudding sounds echoing in the distance, but always approaching.

"Oh dear…" Shepard heard one of the younger privates say with a shaking voice, and rolled his eyes.

A low roar now echoed down the large corridor, when suddenly, a large red dot – an eye! – appeared towering above their heads.

Panic gripped the men as they opened fire on the monster, bullets and grenades bouncing off its heavily armored blue-green hide.

"Oh God, no! God, no, no, nonono ARRRGH!" a soldier screamed when he was lifted of the ground and dropped into the humongous maw of the gargantuan.

"Cover!" someone screamed, as more grenades were hurled at it, exploding but only managing to take off chunks of the surrounding walls. The huge jets blared into life, and several men were instantly incinerated in the cleansing fire of the beast.

Shepard sighed. It appears as if his men were incapable of handling a single larger Xen creature. It appeared as if he'd have to handle the situation himself – soon, he was about to prove that the Administrator has not chosen him for nothing…

With these thoughts in mind, Shepard cocked his rifle and began striding purposefully towards the monster…

-

To be continued?


End file.
